In last few years, India had a no.4 conundrum in ODIs. India had tried several options over the years but they didn’t work. But keeping Shreyas Iyer at no.4 and KL Rahul at no.5 provided stability to the team. However, under the new regime with head coach Gautam Gambhir and his support staff taking over, keeping the left-right combination has become almost a necessity as it seemed in the second ODI against Sri Lanka. There was no set batting order. Shivam Dube who batted lower down the order in first ODI was promoted to no.4 and Iyer, Rahul were pushed down the order.
As India collapsed and lost the match by 32 runs, questions have been raised about the need to keep left and right combination. However, assistant coach Abhishek Nayar has defended the decision to shuffle the batting order which was done to counter the variety of spinners.
"My belief is that in any sport, position only matters if you're playing in different areas of a game. We lost wickets in the middle phase, and that's where the middle order batters batted. It's not as if middle order batters batted towards the end,” Nayar said in the post-match presentation as quoted by ESPNCricinfo.
"If you look at numbers like four, five, or six, maybe sometimes it can play games in your head. It was more about keeping a left-and-right combination, keeping in mind that there were offspinners, and a legspinner in the Sri Lanka team.
"The thought process was right. When it doesn't work out, these questions are asked often. But I've always believed that if a middle order batter bats as a middle order batter, it is the right decision."
Shuffle leads to collapse
Sending Dube did not work in India's favour. He was dismissed lbw for a four-ball duck by Jeffrey Vandersay. Batting out of position, Iyer and Rahul contributed to the collapse as well. Iyer got out lbw whereas Rahul dragged the ball on to his stumps. Both the batters lost their wickets to Vandersay.
Iyer, Rahul’s batting position in 1st ODI
Earlier, in the first ODI, Washington Sundar batted at no.4 instead of Dube. He could not make a difference and departed for a single-digit score. Iyer and Rahul batted at no.5 and no.6 scoring 23 and 31 respectively.
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