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Cricket Players‘When I wasn’t scoring as opener, I was sent to bat in middle-order’: Sehwag explains why India promoted Jadeja at No.
Former India opener Virender Sehwag analysed the possible reason behind the changes in India’s batting order.
Team India got off to a wobbly start against England on the first day of the third day’s opening day at The Oval. After being put to bat, the visitors lost their top three batters with just 39 runs on the board. After Cheteshwar Pujara nicked a James Anderson delivery to keeper Jonny Bairstow, the fans would have expected vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane to walk in next. However, to everyone’s surprise, India opted to make a massive change in the batting order by promoting Ravindra Jadeja at No. 5.
The left-hand all-rounder gave company to his captain and looked confident. India didn’t lose any more wickets in the morning session and reached 54 for 3 at lunch.
Former India opener Virender Sehwag analysed the possible reason behind the changes in India’s batting order. In doing so, he even recalled India’s tour of Australia in 2004 and cited the example of Sachin Tendulkar who wasn’t among runs and his batting position was changed in one of the games in the series.
“Maybe it was step taken to force the England bowlers to alter their line and length against a left-hander. And if the reason is something else then it’s not a good sign for India. It could be just one of the matches when Jadeja was promoted up and sent in to bat ahead of Ajinkya Rahane. The conditions are favouring swing and troubling the right-handers, so send in Jadeja at No. 5; which we usually see in the shorter formats. The right-hand and left-hand combination often troubles a bowler, so may be to introduce that format in Tests as well,” Sehwag said.
“Rahane hasn’t scored much in the last games but same is the case with Kohli and Pujara. Why wasn’t their position altered? So, I think it could be a one-time affair,” he added.
“I remember, Tendulkar wasn’t getting runs in the 2004 tour of Australia. So, Sourav Ganguly changed his position from No. 4 to 5 and he himself batted at No.4. It happens sometimes that when you are getting out regularly while batting at a similar position then such changes are made.”
“Even when I wasn’t scoring as an opener, I was sent to bat in the middle order. When I found my rhythm back, I was back on the top of the order. So that could be a possible reason for the change,” Sehwag concluded.
