KL Rahul or Shubman Gill? Irfan Pathan picks who should open with Rohit Sharma in Border-Gavaskar Trophy

Cricket fans are eagerly waiting for the upcoming blockbuster Test battle between India and Australia. The four-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy will start with the opening Test at Vidarbha Association of Cricket Stadium in Nagpur on February 09. The high-voltage series is extremely vital for both teams as it will clear the picture of the finalists in the World Test Championship (WTC) final.

Hosts India have a tremendous record against the Aussies at home and would look forward to carrying on with it. Notably, the tourists faced heavy defeats in their last two Test tours of India in 2013 and 2017. Further, India have also registered back-to-back wins in their last two Test tours of Australia.

Despite a good record against the Aussies, the home team wouldn’t be taking Australians easy as they know the visitors can bounce back. India must be focusing on ticking boxes their plans in the right order, and one such strategy would be their opening combination. Along with Indian skipper Rohit Sharma, the Bangalore-lad KL Rahul, who recently married Athiya Shetty, is most likely to open the batting.

However, with the emergence of Shubman Gill and speculations of Shreyas Iyer getting ruled out, the experts and fans have started wondering if Gill can open the batting with Rohit in the Australia series. Notably, Gill has recently smashed quite a few memorable knocks in ODIs as well as T20Is, which has pushed his case to become an ideal Test opener.

Speaking about the same former India all-rounder, Irfan Pathan reckoned that Rahul and Rohit have done well, especially in the difficult conditions in England and should continue opening the innings for India. Though, Irfan heaped praises on Shubman and termed him as the next big thing in Indian cricket.

“If you talk about Test matches, you have two openers who have scored runs in difficult conditions, scored runs in England and won matches for India there. They are KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma. So, suddenly because Shubman Gill has scored runs in the T20 format, you cannot ask them to step aside and let him play. You need the stability. But going forward, I have no doubt that he is an all-three-format player. He is a good player against fast bowling and surely a leader in upcoming time,” said Irfan while replying to a fan’s query on Star Sports.

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February 04, 2023 at 05:37PM