India's no 4 connundrum

A majority of India's recent ODI success has been due to one or more of their top 3 doing the bulk of the scoring . Rohit Sharma , Shikhar Dhawan , Virat Kolhi have turned into one of the finest top order batsman in 50 overs cricket with Kohli arguably the worlds best . Their dominance and in turn , India dependence on the big 3 can be gauged by the fact that in the last 3 years, they have made nearly 65% of all the runs scored by India in ODI cricket . Their combined average is the highest for all cricket playing nations .

When either one or two of the top 3 goes on to 50 +score , India's win percentage has shot up to 70% . On the flip side, when none of them score a forst India have lost a toad over half their matches . This points to an over-reliance on the top 3 which goes back to the case when Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly formed the top 3 post the 1999 world cup. India will want to address this anomaly in the lead up to the world cup next year in England.

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Their usual modus operandi has been to chug along at a rate of 5.5ish till the 30th over. However , due to the absence of players who can start hitting from the word go and Dhoni no longer being the swashbuckling batsman of yore, India havent managed to get to too many totals more than 325. There is always the feeling that they could have managed 20 runs more .

With Kohli being rested from the Asia Cup , India have the chance to test a couple of players (some who have been around since some time) to nail a place in the 11 . The usual contenders for the role have been KL Rahul , Manish Pandey, Shreyas Iyer , Ajinkya Rahane, Ambati Rayadu, Dinesh Karthik and Suresh Raina .

Dhoni in the last 2 years has been pretty vocal in wanting to bat at no 4 since it gives him time to get set before he can launch himself into the bowling at the back end of the innings . Shastri too has come out in support about his batting position .

Given this , India's ideal batting line up for the Asia Cup should read : Rohit , Dhawan , Rayadu / Kl Rahul , Dhoni, Karthik / Manish Pandey , Kedar Jadhav / Raina , Pandya , Bhuvaneshvar , Kuldeep , Chahal , Bumrah .

Raina and Jadhav provide India a safety net with their off spin options as Pandya isnt close to nailing a spot as a frontline bowler yet . Trying Axar Patel in place of Chahal / Kuldeep doesnt seem a bad bet as he is a gun fielder and does lengthen the batting card a little.

India have another 20 odd games till the world cup to find a solution to their no. 4 / no. 5 problem . If someone manages to nail a spot soon, India , along with England will start as favorites for the world cup next year

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