With a spot up for grabs, Iyer makes his move

The fight for the No 4 or 5 spot in the Indian batting order is on and while Iyer had moved down the pecking order in recent times, he showed he won't stop trying.

For India's ODI team, which is going to play the 2023 World Cup at home, the fight for the No 4/5 spot in the batting order is well and truly on.

India's Shreyas Iyer plays a shot during the 1st ODI match between West Indies and India, at Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain on Friday (BCCI Twitter)

There are four clear contenders. Three of them were playing in the first ODI against West Indies at Trinidad’s Port of Spain on Friday night – Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav and Deepak Hooda. Rishabh Pant, the fourth option, is a certainty in the middle-order, but his number could vary between four or five.

In the last ODI he played, against England, the keeper-batter scored a match-winning unbeaten 125 coming at No 4. So, these guys could be fighting for the No 5 spot.

Yadav has given his chances a boost with a swashbuckling hundred in the third T20 game against England earlier this month. He has since been preferred in the playing XI ahead of Iyer.

With the senior batters, Virat Kohli, captain Rohit Sharma and Pant rested, the West Indies series is a chance for the contenders to stake claim, get a lot of runs and cement their place in the side.

In Friday's game, Iyer batted at No 3, Yadav at No 4 and Hooda at No 6. But none of them will be happy with how things went in the first ODI.

Iyer got 54 off 57 balls, but he will be upset with himself for frittering away the chance to get a big one. Yadav chopped left-arm spinner Hosein’s delivery on to his stumps, after making 13 off 14 balls and Hooda just couldn’t get going in the closing phase of the innings, huffing and puffing to a 32-ball 27. He had enough time to settle down but he couldn’t get his hitting range with the ball holding on the surface towards the end of the innings.

The visitors could only get 83 runs in the last 15 overs for the loss of five wickets as India finished on 308 for seven, after it looked like they would easily get to around 350 at one point. But the West Indies pacers varied their lengths and pace well to restrict India.

The way West Indies ran India close, falling short in the chase by three runs only, showed that on the batting pitch the total was below par. “It was a good batting track and our bowlers did a commendable job to restrict them,” said West Indies skipper Nicholas Pooran.

Iyer’s record against West Indies is impressive, averaging 57.14 against them. In the last series Iyer played against West Indies, at home earlier this year, he scored 80 in the only match he played. However, things have changed for Iyer since that ODI at Ahmedabad in February. Now, every time he goes out to bat there has been extra attention on him because of his troubles against the shot ball. On Friday, he did well to collect a fifty but when you are looking to cement your place in the side, you want to make the most of your starts.

When Iyer took guard, the West Indies spinners were in operation. His test against the rising ball came against Jayden Seales in the 24th over. The India batter started with a well-controlled pull for a boundary on the second ball when Seales bowled a back of a length delivery. Shreyas hopped and pulled to beat fine leg fielder. Next ball was a well-directed bouncer and Iyer had his heart in the mouth when he top-edged the pull but luckily for him it fell just away from Nicholas Pooran at midwicket. The young fast bowler dug in the last two balls of the over also short. Iyer kept one down to the off-side before crunching a pull past midwicket for a double.

However, after doing the hard work, he fell soon after reaching the 10th half-century of his career, caught brilliantly at cover by a leaping Pooran off left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie.

GILL DAZZLES

In an interesting selection, India preferred Shubman Gill over Ishan Kishan and Ruturaj Gaikwad for the opening position. Gill took the opportunity on why he has been marked out as a special talent with dazzling innings of 64 before being unfortunately run-out.

The Punjab batter’s innings was impressive because of his approach on the day perfectly fitted into the new template that the India think-tank has decided to adopt – going aggressive from the start. Even though captain Shikhar Dhawan top-scored with 97 but Gill put to shade the senior pro with his brisk scoring. The youngster dominated their opening partnership of 119 runs in 17.4 overs. Batting T20 style, Gill hit a flurry of fours as India’s fifty came up in 6.5 overs and 100 in 14 overs.

Starting with a beautiful cover drive, Gill cashed in on any width the bowlers offered while playing some crunching backfoot punches to race to his half-century in 36 balls. The innings lost momentum after the run-out of Gill.

THAKUR’S VITAL BLOWS

Among the pace bowlers, where the competition is quite tough, Shardul Thakur also had a tough tour of England. He didn’t get a chance to play in any of the three ODIs. He is a bowler who can be expensive but has the knack of picking up big wickets. And it seemed he was back to his usual self against the West Indies, not getting rattled by the boundary hits, smartly mixing up to lure the batters into false strokes.

When the visiting team found itself under pressure against the West Indies’ second wicket pair of Shamarh Brooks and Kyle Mayers, Thakur came to the team’s rescue by providing the breakthroughs. He broke the 117-run partnership by drawing a false shot from Brooks to offer a simple catch to Iyer at square-leg. In his next over, the Mumbai pacer drew Mayers into a false shot to an angled delivery thrown wide off the batter’s range to induce an edge.

From 133 for one after 23.4 overs, West Indies were 138 for three after 25.5 overs.

Overall, it proved to be a good entertaining game of cricket. West Indies continued to find a batter to take on the bowlers and stay in the hunt. In the end, it boiled down to 15 runs in the last six balls. Siraj Mohammed bowled the final over and defended the runs to help India home by three runs.