Ahead of the India vs New Zealand ODI series, Team India captain Virat Kohli said that they would be using KL Rahul in the middle order and would give the right-hander a long rope to establish himself in this new role. This means that Rahul could also keep wickets as he was very successful in the ODI series against Australia and then against the T20I series against New Zealand. However, former India opener Aakash Chopra is not convinced with the ploy as he believes that playing Rahul in the middle order might prove to be unfair on the batsman. He also says that Rahul keeping wickets might increase the chances of him getting injured which might not be ideal for the side.
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“I’m not suggesting that making Rahul keep will injure him, but it would increase the chances of that happening. His body might not be used to keeping wicket for three and a half hours and then opening the innings half an hour later. Yes, I hear you, Adam Gilchrist could do it, but then, he also trained his wicket-keeping muscles all his cricket-playing life. Thousands of hours of keeping develop and strengthen the muscles required to perform that role. And keeping in a 50-over game is very different from keeping in a T20I,” he wrote in his column for ESPNCricinfo.
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{{/usCountry}}“When and how are we going to know whether Pant or Sanju Samson or Ishan Kishen or someone else is to be the second wicketkeeper in the side,” he goes on to write.
“If India don’t pick a full-time keeper in their ODI playing XIs too, they will paint themselves into a corner, where they will need to pick someone as a backup purely on gut feel and not going by his performances,” Chopra further adds.