India took field without captain and opener Rohit, incumbent No.3 Gill, and ace fast bowler Mohammed Shami when they took field at the Perth Stadium for the first Test of the five-match series in Australia. They also left out R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, their premier spin-bowling all-rounders, in favour of Washington Sundar.

To replace Rohit, India promoted KL Rahul to the top to pair with Yashasvi Jaiswal, and filled Rahul’s No.6 slot with Dhruv Jurel; and drafted Devdutt Padikkal into the side at No.3. The two Indian debutants, Harshit Rana and Nitish Kumar Reddy, impressed, and the tourists won by 295 runs, their biggest win in Australia in terms of runs.

Rohit and Gill are available for the second Test, at Adelaide, and are set to replace Padikkal and Jurel. However, there are a couple of problems.

Who will India’s top three be?

Of course, Yashasvi Jaiswal will open batting. There should not be any doubt over that after his two double-hundreds against England and 161 in Perth.

Rohit was promoted to the top of the Test batting line-up in 2019, and has not batted down the order since then. He averages 44.01 as an opener – and that includes 44.54 in England – but the number drops to 32.25 in Australia (and 20.00 in South Africa).

In 2024, Rohit averages 29.40 in Test cricket. Across India’s last two series, against Bangladesh and New Zealand at home, he has 133 runs at 13.30, lasting more than 31 balls once in 10 innings. True, he has got India off to rollicking starts every now and then, but the pink ball may demand a different approach.

Rahul, on the other hand, has shown his ability to adapt. After being dropped in 2023, he returned as a No.6-cum-keeper at Centurion in late 2023 and responded with a gorgeous hundred under tricky conditions and followed it with 86 and 22 against England. Then he was injured, recalled, and dropped.

As opener, Rahul has a hundred in each of Australia and South Africa, and two in England. At Perth, he made 26 (before getting a controversial dismissal) and 77.

It is not very clear which of Rohit and Rahul will open with Jaiswal. Alternately, if one opens and the other bats at No.3, Gill will have to drop down the order. Jaiswal and Rahul opened in the tour match at Canberra, followed by Gill and Rohit in that order. One can only wonder whether they will come out in the same order at Adelaide.

However, since Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant are certain to bat at four and five (Pant has not batted outside the top five since the 2021-22 home series against Sri Lanka), one of Rohit, Rahul, and Gill will have to bat at six a la Mayank Agarwal at the Gabba in 2020-21. However, any of them can be promoted as a floater against the moving pink ball.

Will the same bowlers play?

Washington had little to do at Perth, which may not change much at the pink-ball Test match. At the same time, he bowled and batted before Jadeja at Canberra, and may not be out of the race altogether. Jadeja has been excellent with the bat, but Washington was excellent in the ball in the last series, against New Zealand at home, and there is no obvious reason to back Jadeja ahead of him.

R Ashwin had taken 4-55 and 1-16 when India played a floodlit Test at Adelaide in 2020-21, but he played no role at Canberra and is probably not in the race.

Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj pick themselves, as does Rana, for his 3-48 and 1-69 on debut, at Perth, and 4-44 at Canberra. Nitish Kumar Reddy impressed on debut as well, at Perth, but that was with the bat. Despite being the fourth seamer, he got only seven overs across the two innings.

India’s exceptional bowling meant that they did not need their fourth seamer in the first innings. In the second innings, they had the cushion of a 534-run target. However, that may not be the case every time.

There may be some merit in replacing Reddy with an out-and-out specialist fast bowler like Akash Deep or Prasidh Krishna. At the same time, there is also merit in including Reddy (thus extending the batting by as much as possible against the pink ball).

In the end, it will come down to a choice between the better fast bowler, and the fast bowler who bats better.

Predicted XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (wk), Rohit Sharma (c), Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

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