Opening with Rishabh Pant was a temporary move, confirms Rohit Sharma

Despite a rather unusual and quiet day in the office for the batting order, Team India completed a monumental win over West Indies thanks to a wonderful bowling performance in the second ODI. With this win, they now have the three-match series in the bag. Rohit Sharma’s life as new full-time ODI skipper has got off to a comfortable start and he seemed happy while talking in the post-match presentation ceremony.

“Obviously winning the series is a good feeling. There were some challenges. The partnership between Rahul and Surya had a lot of maturity. We got to a respectable total in the end. We knew we could fight it out.

“The entire unit came out and bowled superbly. It is important for these guys to bat under pressure and that is how you will judge their character. Surya had to take his time and understand what the team wants from him. KL also batted superbly as he is consistently up and down in the order,” said Rohit Sharma when asked about the difficulties of batting on the wicket.

India endured a torrid start to the afternoon after being put to bat first. They lost their first three wickets inside 12 overs for only 43 runs. It was only when KL Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav arrived to the crease that they were able to stitch a solid partnership and guide India to a respectable total. While Suryakumar Yadav scored 64 runs, Rahul got run-out while he was just one run short of a half-century.

The talking point of India’s batting from the afternoon was their decision to open with Rishabh Pant. With KL Rahul returning to the squad in place of Ishan Kishan who had opened in the last match, it was expect that Rahul would open the batting much like he had done in the series against South Africa.

However, the Men in Blue surprised everyone by promoting wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant to the top of the order. The experiment didn’t exactly work out as Pant could only manage 18 runs and didn’t even get started with his pyrotechnics inside the Powerplay. Both Rohit and Rishabh were back in the hut inside the first 12 overs.

Rohit later confirmed that this was a one-time experiment as he was trying different things. Shikhar Dhawan is likely to return to the team in the next game after missing the first two matches due to COVID and will reclaim his spot as opening batter.

“I have been asked to try different things, so that was something different (on Pant opening). We wanted to try it one game and is not a permanent thing. Shikhar should be back for the next game. We don’t mind losing a few games while trying out a few things. Because it is important to look at the long-term goals. We will see what works out well for the team combination (for the final ODI).”