The first India vs New Zealand Test is almost upon us and the Green park stadium in Kanpur will be the venue for it. With under 48 hours to go for the game, the permutations and combinations will be in the minds of teams and for the hosts, the dilemma starts right at the top, with the selection of the opening combination.
India have three openers in their squad, namely Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay and KL Rahul. But the conundrum lies in who to pick between Dhawan and Rahul, with Vijay, courtesy his consistent showing in the past 12-18 months, having sealed his place in the starting XI.
Former India batsman VVS Laxman gives his pick and has chosen Rahul and Vijay to bat for India at the top of the order and admitted that dropping Dhawan isn’t the easiest of decisions to make
“For openers, I will pick KL Rahul and Murali Vijay. Vijay has been the most consistent batsman in the last two-three seasons. Rahul’s emergence is no doubt because of Virat (his mentoring starting at Royal Challengers Bangalore). It will be tough on Shikhar, no doubt,” he said.
Laxman isn’t the only one who is in favour of this combination. His long-time captain during his playing days, Sourav Ganguly also advocated the same combination, stating a similar analogy to the Hyderabadi.
“With eyes closed, it’s Vijay and Rahul for the opening slot. Look at their performance overseas. For Vijay, in Australia and England. In West Indies he got injured and then never got picked again. By far, he has been India’s best opener over the last two years. Before the Windies tour we had the same discussion on Rahul and now he has become one of the premier Indian batsmen. So these two should open. Pujara at 3, Virat Kohli at 4, Rahane at 5,” he had said.
It certainly makes sense to open the batting with two batsmen, who are technically good and take the shine off, but Sanjay Manjrekar is of the different opinion to both Laxman and Ganguly and has picked Dhawan, purely because of the 84 he made in the Antigua test last month.
It is a discussion that will many answers from several other experts, but the key men to decide on who should open the batting will be Anil Kumble and Virat Kohli and on Thursday morning, we will know who will take the field against the Blackcaps.
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