I once went for a ramble in Shubman Gill.

It’s weird how, when a scandal breaks, those in senior positions happily choose total incompetence in favour of looking guilty.

You had no idea what was going on? Oh, well, that’s alright then.

The ODI team of course, for Tests there’s no obvious alternative. But yes, I’m all for Rohit as ODI team captain.

Let me go even further and say that Rohit should be captain of the team and not Kohli.

They absolutely wont move him on though. Aside from the cult of personality thing don’t forget he’s been a long term employee of Srinivasan via India Cements and it’s various subsidiary holdings so he has political cover.

Apparently he had no idea of the spot betting and match fixing going on at CSK suggesting he isn’t overly competent as a captain.

Then Gill should’ve been brought in for the NZ games, without which he’s left with only 5 possible home games against Aus, which to me is nowhere near enough to merit a world cup place, even if he does feature in those at all (unlikely). He didn’t feature enough in the IPL either, while doing well. I personally like Karthik, he did well today, enough experience, has opened Tests in England, captains an IPL side well, knows his job. He’s a Jack – in – the – box, but I’ve seen good experience beat great skill way too often in knock out world cup games. Granted, I’ll take Gill over Rayudu, I’ll also take Pant over Rayudu at this point! And yet to me, Gill is still in competition with Iyer, Pandey, Shaw, Agarwal. He’s in his first real season! 2023, buddy! In summary, I think Karthik + Pant > Gill + Karthik > Gill +Pant > Karthik + Rayudu > Gill +Rayudu. My fear is they will end up with Rayudu + Pant.

I’d back Dhoni to keep calm whether it’s 50 off 30 or 70 off 30, but something tells me if it’s Dhoni and the lower order at the crease against England, 70 off 30 is impossible.
I was actually thinking of replacing Karthik with Gill. I’m looking for players who can single-handedly win a match for India, and Karthik (notwithstanding his T20 exploits against Bangladesh who don’t know how to win crunch games) or Rayudu are not those players. I’m backing Pant and Gill over Karthik and Rayudu at this point.

Dhoni’s merit in the team is based on his calm, leadership and street smartness, more than his keeping skills – as valuable as they are. He directs the relatively young bowlers, makes the operational field changes when kohli’s on the boundary, and I’d bet on his massive calm skills in a potential world cup final /semi – final 30-ball 50 chase. To me, Rayudu is replaceable by Pant if Karthik can play at 4. Gill should be a star at 2023 WC, but then I’d thought KL Rahul would be a star at this one, so what do I know?!