With less than 50 days left for the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023, experts are back with their opinions. Ravi Shastri, who was part of the World Cup-winning squad in 1983, believes that hosts India should go into the showpiece tournament with three left handers in their top seven.
Speaking on Star Sports, Shastri opined that the Men in Blue needed left-handed batters as it would add to a lot of variety in their line-up.
According to Shastri, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya are certainties in the batting line-up and he would like at least two southpaws to fill the remaining three slots.
"There are three other positions where I think two left handers have to come in, apart from the top four you mentioned. Now this is where the selectors' role comes in because they are watching. They know who's the guy who's hot. If Tilak Varma is hot, bring him in. If you think Yashasvi Jaiswal is hot, bring him in," Shastri said while discussing India's possible XI for the ODI World Cup 2023.
Shastri called for Ishan Kishan’s inclusion as an opener, stating that the team had backed the aggressive left-hander ahead of the ODI World Cup and Asia Cup.
"So if you have persisted with Ishan Kishan for the last 6 to 8 months and he's going to keep wickets, he comes in, in any case. But get two left handers. Including Jaddu, there should be three left-handers in the top seven. Ishan Kishan has been keeping for the last 15 months. Why go somewhere else?" he added.
The former India head coach was highly impressed with Tilak Varma and backed him for the No. 4 position.
Notably, Tilak became a household name after his exploits in the IPL for Mumbai Indians in the last couple of seasons. He recently made his India debut in the T20I series against West Indies and returned with scores of 39, 51, 49*, 7* and 27.
Injuries to Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul forced India to try several batters like Sanju Samson, and Suryakumar Yadav at No. 4 but none of them managed to make the position their own in the 50-over format.
"Very Very impressed with Tilak Varma. And I want a left hander. If I am looking for a left hander, I would really look in that direction," Shastri concluded.
While the ICC Men’s World Cup is slated to get underway on October 5 with the England versus New Zealand clash in Ahmedabad, India will open their campaign against five-time champions Australia on October 8 at Chepauk.
