In the absence of big names like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, a young Indian team, led by Suryakumar Yadav, thrashed Australia 4-1 in a five-match T20Is series. Ruturaj Gaikwad was India’s top-scorer in the series with 223 runs in five matches at an average of 55.75. However, former India opener Aakash Chopra feels Gaikwad will face stiff competition from Shubman Gill for a place in the Indian team at the T20 World Cup next year.
Chopra explained why scoring runs in the series was important for Gaikwad.
“Ruturaj Gaikwad – he said that he is there. Ruturaj is going to have stiff competition because Shubman Gill also plays like that. Rohit Sharma will also come now. So suddenly you will feel that you aren’t even able to pick two among the three. So these runs were necessary,” Chopra said on his YouTube channel.
“Keep scoring runs so that you are part of the squad when the World Cup comes. From his point of view, it’s important that he remains a part of the squad. It might be a direct shoot-out between him and Shubman Gill. You might keep one of them as both do similar things in T20 cricket,” he added.
Gaikwad’s 223 runs in the five games are the most by any batter in a T20I bilateral series against Australia.
Earlier, the record belonged to New Zealand’s Martin Guptill who scored 218 runs in five matches back in 2021.
Although the youngster was dismissed for just 10 on Sunday, he was able to achieve the milestone thanks to brilliant performances in the past four matches.
Overall, he is the third highest run-scorer in a single series among Indian batters behind KL Rahul and Virat Kohli.
Gaikwad will look to play a similar role, if not better, during the upcoming tour of South Africa.
India’s T20I squad for South Africa tour
Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (C), Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan (wk), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Ravindra Jadeja (VC), Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Deepak Chahar.
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