Asia Cup 2023: Ishan Kishan to bat in middle order against Pakan; Sanju Samson unlikely to be tried | Cricket News

Pallekele: Last week, during India’s preparatory camp in Bangalore, Rahul Dravid had called the team over for dinner at his home. That evening, players trooped out of the lift, and stood around along with the chief selector Ajit Agarkar and other support staff. The most cheerful among them was Ishan Kishan, cracking jokes, backslapping others, and generally in a good mood. These are good times for Ishan. Three consecutive half-centuries against West Indies, and injury niggles to chief contenders has put him in a chance to seal a middle-order spot in the world cup. And it will start with the Asia Cup where India is set to try him at No.4 or No. 5 against Pakan and Nepal.
With KL Rahul, who is recovering from a groin niggle ruled out of group stages of the Asia Cup, India’s team management’s latest experiment would be to make Ishan Kishan bat in the middle-order. Though Sanju Samson has travelled with the team as a reserve for Rahul, with the chances of him finding a spot in the World Cup squad – set to be announced on September 5 — looking bleak, the team management is planning to try Kishan in at No 4 or 5.
With Shikhar Dhawan not part of the plans since last December and Kishan, primarily an opener, scoring a double century against Bangladesh, he had his place sealed as a third choice opener. However, with India’s middle-order composition far from certain and top three of Shubman Gill, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli looking set, the makeup of the middle order has remained uncertain especially in the absence of Rahul. Especially after Shreyas Iyer, who had consently done well at No.4, got injured. And even more so, after Suryakumar Yadav failed to sparkle in that spot.
While playing Samson would continue to give them the flexibility that skipper Rohit talked about in the press conference after the Asia Cup was announced, it is understood that the team management doesn’t want to add more complications this close to the World Cup. With Kishan’s position locked, bringing Samson back into the contention so close to the World Cup will add a new headache. In the previous weeks with Rahul’s availability being a huge concern, the team management did deliberate on shuffling the top three where one of Rohit and Kohli were being actively considered to bat at No 4.
However, following a week-long camp at the KSCA facilities in Alur in the outskirts of Bangalore, India’s think-tank has decided not to break the top three. The Indian Express understands that Rohit was not keen on the top three batting out of their positions as they brought stability at the top. Instead, with Kishan not being first choice player in the XI, the team management has decided to try him in the middle-order as he would also bring in something different being a left-hander.
In the six matches that Kishan has batted in the middle-order (at No 4), he averages only 22.75 and has a tendency to struggle against spinners while starting his innings. Kishan will be one of the two reserve batsmen in the squad with the other likely to be Suryakumar Yadav.
WC squad selection
Meanwhile, it is understood that the senior national selection committee will meet on September 5, a day after India’s group match against Nepal to pick the squad for the World Cup. The participating teams are supposed to handover the squad l to the ICC on September 5 and the indications are that the meeting would be held in Kandy with chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar joining the team here on Thursday.Most Read
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Although India reached Kandy on Wednesday, they didn’t have a training session on Thursday and are scheduled to train on Friday evening. With forecasts of moderate to heavy rains predicted for the next three days, there is a lot of uncertainty around the India vs Pakan fixture. But in an encouraging sign, on Thursday, despite dark clouds hovering over the stadium during Sri Lanka’s match against Bangladesh, there was no rain except for a strong drizzle that lasted for a couple of minutes.
With regards to the selection, having picked a 17-member squad for the Asia Cup, India have to cull the squad to 15 with Tilak Varma and one of the seam bowling options set to miss out. With India lacking depth in the batting order, the toss up for the final pace bowling option is likely to be between Shardul Thakur and Prasidh Krishna. Although the latter can be an attacking option to use in the middle overs, the team management believe Thakur’s batting will be needed at some stage. Recently, Pakan managed to beat Afghanan in the last over thanks to some cameos from their tail but India lacks that sort of luxury in white-ball cricket.
The BCCI secretary Jay Shah is also expected to reach the hilly terrain on Friday ahead of India’s match against Pakan on Saturday and is likely to stay back for the squad selection.