Last Update on: March 20th, 2023 at 03:50 pm
India has booked a spot in the ICC World Test Championship final for the second year in a row after defeating Australia 2-1 in the recently ended Border-Gavaskar Trophy. India will once again compete against the Baggy Greens at the Oval from June 7–11 in the 2021–23 WTC cycle’s summit match for the championship. Even though the big game is still more than two months away, there is a lot of talk surrounding India’s anticipated starting lineup with the main talk around KL Rahul and KS Bharat.
Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir has added his voice to those of former head coach Ravi Shastri and renowned batter Sunil Gavaskar in support of KL Rahul’s participation in the team as a wicketkeeper-batter.
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Contrary to the first two, he wants the Indian team management to support KS Bharat for the position rather than playing Rahul as a wicketkeeper-batter. In his opinion, Team India ought to field a “specialist” wicketkeeper rather than a “part-time” wicketkeeper.
Gautam Gambhir Backs KS Bharat Amongst Support For KL Rahul
KL Rahul should bat as a specialist, not as a wicketkeeper-batter, according to Gautam Gambhir, if the team management wishes to exploit his strong Test record in England as justification for including him in the lineup.
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“You should always go with a specialist wicketkeeper. England is a tough place to keep, where you can’t go with a part-time wicketkeeper. If you want to pick KL Rahul for the WTC final, then play him purely as a batsman. In four matches, we concluded that KS Bharat’s batting and keeping are not up to the mark. In those four matches, our top-order batsmen also failed to score; we must keep that in mind. Those former players who are questioning Bharat must check their own records. The longer runs they have gotten despite not being able to perform.”
“In Test cricket, you should always play a proper keeper. A wicketkeeper can drop catches, but he can also take some stunning catches as well. Ex-cricketers should know the importance of keeping in Test cricket. One dropped catch can change the Test match. If a keeper drops a catch, you know that he is a regular keeper, but if a part-time keeper drops a catch, you will keep scratching your head the entire five days that, oh, we should have played a proper wicketkeeper.”
With the WTC finals set to take place after the conclusion of the IPL 2023, it will be interesting to see if India opt to go with KS Bharat or KL Rahul as their wicketkeeper option.
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