India ODI captain Shubman Gill remained non-committal on the team’s ‘good headache’ at the top of the order after the 3-0 series win against Afghanistan. He refused to confirm Rohit Sharma as the team’s opener for the next ODI series, against England in July, saying they will decide after seeing the squad and observing ‘where everyone’s fitness is’, effectively leaving the spot open for Ishan Kishan and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Although a bilateral series at home against the seventh-ranked ODI team should not mean much, Rohit is facing an intriguing amount of pressure, with each of his performances being closely watched with one eye on the 2027 ODI World Cup. Despite being quite consistent over the past few ODI rubbers, his age, 39, means that he needs
to keep proving he’s good enough for a spot at the World Cup.
In this series, he scored 143 runs, including a 79 in the latest ODI in Chennai, at an average of 47.67 and a strike-rate of 115.32. On the other hand, Yashasvi Jaiswal scored a brilliant, unbeaten 110 in Chennai as the opener, and Kishan put up a 125 from the middle-order in the second game. Both Jaiswal and Kishan have the added advantage of being left-handers, which head-coach Gautam Gambhir loves.
“I mean, it is a good kind of headache having all the players that are performing,” Gill said about the future of the top order. “I think the squad will be announced tomorrow or in the next couple of days. So, we will see the squad, and then we will have the best XI to put out anyway. I mean, we will see where everyone’s fitness is. If everyone is fit, like I said, we will see who is in the squad, and based on the squad, we will try to make the best XI possible,” he added.
The India-England three-ODI series will begin on July 14.
