Race for wicketkeeper's slot gets hotter in runup to T20 World Cup

Bengaluru: Workload management be damned, the big boys have come to the party, and it has turned an already-engaging soap opera into a fiery reality show. 

Here’s the simple enough plot: India are headed to the T20 World Cup in a couple of months, and while the focus is more on how Virat Kohli and, to an extent, Rohit Sharma perform to remain in contention for a spot in the World Cup squad, it’s in fact the race for the wicketkeeper’s slot that has become spicier. 

The hats in the ring have these names stamped on them: Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Sanju Samson, Jitesh Sharma and Ishan Kishan.

The odds of Rahul and Pant, who are returning to action after severe injuries, keeping this IPL had the World Cup not been on the horizon were slim to none, so you can see almost a sense of desperation in them.

The same is writ on the faces of the three others, but the real quandary for the management is this: ‘Do we take ’keepers who have just about recovered from an injury only to see him break down again on foreign shores, or reward the ones who are promising?’ This is assuming they pick at least two wicketekeepers for the marquee event. 

Recent history will show that selectors would take the former stance as they seem to back experience and consistency given the precedence of picking Rahul or the injury-prone all-rounder Hardik Pandya.     

Rahul has had six separate injuries in the last three years. Pant was able to bounce back to playing international cricket after 15 months of nearly losing his life. 

Indian cricket has had a long-standing trouble with ’keepers across formats. It’s a conundrum which has repeatedly infuriated the management since the format-by-format exit of MS Dhoni, but there has been no like-for-like replacement for the man with the Midas Touch. 

While it’s unlikely that the Dhoni-shaped void will ever be filled, Indian cricket has a plethora of more-than-impressive candidates to get the job done... and then they go ahead and get injured (or cite mental health concerns) to leave the door open for someone else to look shiny, presentable, promising.

Frankly, had Pant not gone through a life-altering accident over 15 months ago, this piece wouldn’t have seen the light of day because the southpaw was the behind-the-stumps future across formats. 

As Pant’s harrowing tale played out from one gurney to another, Rahul came along and did a decent enough job, including at the 50-over World Cup last year, but then the Bengalurean picked up yet another injury. 

With those two big boys out of the conversation for a brief bit, Kishan, Samson and Jitesh walked onto the set. 

Of the three, Kishan was the one with the majority votes until he capitulated his immediate future by being ambiguous with his intentions while using mental health as a crutch. Naturally, that didn’t sit well with the management, and so he assumes the lowest bargaining power at this point. 

Then there are Samson and Jitesh. 

Rarely does Samson get to be the favourite but in this battle of two, he has the upper hand because of the quality and volume of his work. Should even his latest innings (82 from 52 balls against Lucknow Super Giants) from a day ago be considered, you would see why the management will be hard-pressed to keep his name in the conversation. 

Jitesh isn’t spectacular but the 30-year-old has managed to impress with the bat in the nine T20Is he had played in the last six months. 

But, the thing is that a keeper’s negotiating capacity comes with his ability to bat rather than what he can do behind the stumps. Mediocrity won’t cut it, but you can get away with being a little better than that as long as you can bat out of your skin. 

In that case, Jitesh has only offered glimpses of his skills as a batter so he slides down, but above Kishan, on the top-five list which is set in order of possible preference. By that, Samson will be third in line.

That leaves us with Rahul and Pant. It won’t be an easy decision to make given that both the cricketers are coming back from injuries of a severe nature, but their pedigree precedes them so they will naturally earn more conversation time among selectors.