Team India showed great play on the first day of the Test against West Indies in Dominica. The team bowled out the hosts for 150 and began their innings with Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma. India ended the day with 80 runs, as Rohit Sharma and Jaiswal stood at 30 and 40, respectively. Debutant Jaiswal has replaced Gill for the opening slot, who urged the team management to move him to No. 3, as he has mostly played in that position in the Indian domestic circuit.
Akash Chopra believes this is unusual
While Gill has been the opening batsman in significant successes for India, his shift to No. 3 will change certain dynamics in the Indian batting order, as the position was previously held by Cheteshwar Pujara, who is the team’s best defensive batsman. Now India’s former cricketer Aakash Chopra believes that it is unusual for a player to request a change in the batting order in Indian cricket, but it can be beneficial for the team.
Chopra said on his YouTube channel, “Shubman Gill told the team management that he wants to play at number three.” This is very interesting, because usually we don’t hear about such things happening in Indian cricket. You would never see a player telling the team management that he likes to bat at a particular position. Neither one makes that request, nor is one given that luxury. But the good thing is that Yashasvi Jaiswal is now open.
Now Gill will take up Pujara’s role
Aakash Chopra admitted that the job of the opening batsman is the toughest in the batting order, but he expected Gill to bat lower down the order at some point in his career. In test cricket, there is only one difficult job, and that is that of an Opener. No. 3 is still a challenging position, but No. 4 is the most settled position, and the team usually keeps their best batsman at that position because they don’t want him to bat with a tailender. In 2020, Chopra tweeted that Shubman will play for India for a long time, but in a few years we will see him bat in the middle. Now he himself has expressed this desire. Now in this test, Shubman Gill will replace Pujara for the role of No. 3 batsman, who was dropped from the squad after a forgettable show in the World Test Championship final against Australia the previous month.
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