Dinesh Karthik, India’s wicketkeeper and batsman, thinks KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant will have to battle it out for a starting spot when the two teams face off in a three-game ODI series against Bangladesh.
The experienced wicketkeeper discussed the battle between KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant for the fifth spot in India’s batting order. The latter had been in the position for some time, but his form had been lacklustre. Despite having started his international career in the middle order, Rahul has mostly opened in the fifty-over format.
According to Karthik, Rahul would most likely be given a spot in the middle of India’s batting order for one-day internationals. He said that as Pant has just come to Bangladesh from New Zealand, the right-handed batter would be used instead of Pant in the first ODI.
While the Men in Blue were playing the just-finished ODI series against New Zealand, Pant had a rough time finding his groove. The southpaw had a terrible batting average of 12.50 after getting only 25 runs in 2 innings.
“(Number) five is where we need to discuss. There will be a toss-up between KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant. I have a feeling that KL Rahul will play, for sure. Pant, I think, has taken a long flight from New Zealand and has landed as we speak. KL Rahul will be a proper middle-order batsman for the fifty-over World Cup. If that happens, they will fit him at number five,” Karthik told Cricbuzz.
Meanwhile, Rahul had been going through a similar slump; he scored 128 runs at an average of 21.33 in six innings during the recently finished T20 World Cup in Australia.
The first one-day international (ODI) of the series between India and Bangladesh will be played on Sunday, December 4. Dhaka’s Sher-E-Bangla National Cricket Stadium will host the much-anticipated matchup.
