I keep a spreadsheet. This is not a thing that surprises anyone who knows me, but it is a thing that I mention because the spreadsheet is the reason for this piece, and the spreadsheet has, for the last year, been telling me something that the selectors do not seem to be hearing. The spreadsheet has the batting order of every ODI India has played since the start of 2025, and the spreadsheet has, in the columns for numbers four, five, and six, a problem.
The Numbers, In Order
India have used eleven players at number four in the last twenty ODIs. They have used nine at number five. They have used six at number six. The players used at four include two openers, three middle-order batters, two allrounders, a wicketkeeper, and two players who were, at the time of their selection, not in the original squad and were called up as replacements. This is not a list of eleven players who were tried and found wanting. This is a list of eleven players who were tried and not given a run.
The longest run at number four in this period is six innings, by Shreyas Iyer, who averaged forty-one in those six innings, and who was then dropped, and who was then brought back, and who has not batted at four since. The longest run at number five is five innings, by Suryakumar Yadav, who averaged thirty-eight in those five innings, and who was then moved to four, and who was then moved back to five, and who was then rested.
Why The Churn Is Not A Selection Problem
The selectors are the people who pick the squad, and the captain and the coach are the people who pick the batting order, and the batting order is the thing that has been churned. The selectors have, to their credit, picked consistent squads. The squads for the last three ODI series have had, between them, four changes, all injury-enforced. The batting order within those squads has changed eleven times at number four. The problem is not the players available. The problem is the structure above them.
The structure above them is Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill, who open, and who have, in the last twenty ODIs, batted together for the first wicket in seventeen of them, and who have, in those seventeen innings, put on, on average, sixty-eight runs per opening stand. Sixty-eight is a good opening stand. Sixty-eight is also an opening stand that leaves the number four, on average, coming in around the twentieth over, which is the over in which the field is back and the ball is soft and the run rate is the thing that has to go up. The number four in this team is the position that is asked to score at a run a ball from ball one, and to do so against a ball that is not doing anything, and to do so in a role that has been described to the batters, in the team meetings, as the most important role in the side.
What The Numbers Say About The Players Who Have Been There
I averaged the averages. The eleven players who have batted at four have, between them, averaged thirty-four in the position. The nine players who have batted at five have averaged thirty-one. The six players who have batted at six have averaged twenty-nine. These are not bad averages. These are averages that are, in the context of the position and the overs in which they come, about right. The problem is not the averages. The problem is that no player has been allowed to build on the average, because no player has been given more than six innings, and because six innings is not enough innings for a batter to settle into a role, and because the role itself, as described above, is a role that asks the batter to do two things at once, and those two things are score quickly and not get out, and those two things are easier to do if you know you will be there next game.
What I Would Do, If Anyone Asked
I would pick one batter for four, one for five, and one for six, and I would tell them, in writing, that they will bat there for the next ten ODIs, regardless of what happens, and I would tell the captain the same, and I would tell the press the same, and I would let the batters fail, and I would let the batters fail again, and I would let the batters fail a third time, and I would see, after ten innings, what the averages were. I do not think this will happen. I think the churn will continue, because the churn is the easier thing to do, and because the churn gives the impression of action, and because action is what selectors and captains are expected to show. But the numbers are in the spreadsheet, and the numbers have been telling us, for a year, that the churn is the problem.