Gautam Gambhir, Team India's head coach, described cricket as a team sport while defending the management's decision to demote KL Rahul to number six in the batting order. Rahul began his career as an opener but has recently batted at number six in ODIs.
The wicketkeeper batter considered the perfect team player, has already settled into his new job, as evidenced in the Champions Trophy semi-final against Australia.
The 32-year-old grabbed hold of the huge clash and altered gears at the appropriate time, scoring an unbeaten 42 runs off 34 balls as India prevailed by four wickets. He ended the match in style with a six.
During the post-match news conference, Gambhir was asked about Rahul's demotion in the batting line-up, and he frankly stated that the impact is what counts to him, not the numbers. The Indian head coach delivers a clear message that the player's primary goal is to get into the XI and then accomplish what the team requires, which he believes Rahul is eager to do.
"You know in a sport like cricket and in a team sport, numbers don't matter, batting positions don't matter, it's the impact that matters.
You should only be thinking of picking yourself in the playing 11 and rest whatever is needed of you to do it for the team you should be happily doing it and KL has done that and KL has done that really happily and he's done that really well at number six as well," Gambhir said during the press conference.
Gambhir commented on the decision to move Rahul to number six, claiming that it has helped them attain more depth in the batting order.
"People keep talking about it, I don't know for how long they've been talking about it, why we've pushed KL at number six. Just we feel that he gives us more depth, and that is how we want to play the game.
And the conversations which I've had with him or the conversations which I've had with everyone is exactly the same that in a team sport, especially in cricket and in this format, we are not going to talk about batting positions. We're going to talk about how can we create that impact and what is needed of the team. We'll continue doing that," he said.
KL Rahul, during his 42-run knock, completed 3,000 runs in ODIs in his 78th innings. Only two Indian batters got to that milestone quicker - Dhawan in 72 innings and Kohli in 75 innings.
(ANI inputs)
