India have always been blessed with top-quality batters. From Sunil Gavaskar to Virat Kohli, India have always been lucky to have so many options through their domestic cricketing structure. Currently, the Indian Test team has several good-quality openers. Interestingly, everyone has given their best and performed the role expected from them for that particular scenario whenever they were provided an opportunity. It has been like a musical chair majorly due to injury concerns. In this piece, we analyze the different options India have and what each opener brings to the table.
Since August 2018, India have used eight different openers home and away. Statistically, Rohit Sharma has by far been the most successful of them. In 27 innings, the batter has scored 1462 runs, whereas KL Rahul has 792 runs in 28 innings. That is a huge difference. Rahul has played 25 of his 28 innings on foreign soil and has the most runs away from home as an opener.
Performance at Home
Rohit Sharma has been able to do justice to his talent and has scored four centuries in this period (all stats are after 1st August 2018). Among batters with more than 500 runs in this period, Sharma has the second-best average of 75 .08, just behind Mayank Agarwal’s 78.37.
Agarwal, who debuted for India on foreign soil and played exceptionally well, has been India’s third-highest run-getter, second in terms of openers. Agarwal has a good domestic experience, being in the circuit for more than ten years, and has used that experience to play long innings. He has three centuries in eight innings at home, two of which are double hundreds. Agarwal has been an absolute run machine in Test matches at home. Despite such stats, the gap between the matches and the constant rotation of openers has not worked out well for him.
On the contrary, Shubman Gill has got nine innings in just ten months, but the youngster has not been able to capitalize on it. An average of 21 for an Indian opener at home is not good enough, given the competition around. Prithvi Shaw has only played his one series in India (his debut series), and it was way back in 2018. Probably the youngest of all got the earliest chance and he did capitalize on it by scoring a century on debut and following it up with good scores.
Rahul has only played three innings at home, and the other openers in Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, and Hanuma Vihari all opened the batting only on foreign soil.
Away Performance
Opening the innings in away matches can be considered as one of the most challenging tasks in cricket. Indian cricket team has struggled with finding good openers in the last decade who can perform in such difficult conditions. The legendary Rahul Dravid is the only exception in this list. In 2011, Dravid had an average of 79.5 in five innings with two centuries to his name.
Since 1st August 2018, in 86 innings by these eight players, they have scored three centuries and 11 half-centuries. Statistically, the team gets one 50+ score from any one of the openers once in three matches. Rahul has the most number of runs but has a low average of 30. Sharma opened the innings on foreign soil for the first time in December 2020 and has performed very well in the toughest of conditions. In seven matches, an average of 45.18 is a testament to the skill the player has and how he has used his experience to do the required job.
Making your Test debut after a match where your team was all out for 36 runs and ending the series with nearly 300 runs at an average of more than 50 runs, Gill has had the perfect start to opening the innings away from home. The player opened for India in the final of the World Test Championship and was the primary choice to do so in the England series before an injury ruled him out.
Agarwal had a great start, with nearly 200 runs in two matches in the 2018/19 Border Gavaskar Trophy but a disappointing performance in the 2020/2021 edition saw him out of the team. Vihari was a makeshift opener for one match, and Vijay and Dhawan last played in 2018 and had poor stats against their names. Shaw with an average of 17 does not look like getting a chance any time soon.
Conclusion
It’s usually good to have a problem of plenty, but it can turn out to be an issue in providing a consistent run to an opener. But with injuries just before the match, bio-bubbles, and workload management, team India has been able to give an almost equal number of opportunities to three of the openers ( Sharma- 16 matches, Agarwal-14 matches, Rahul-15 matches) and also gave a good run to the youngster Gill, with nine matches in less than a year.
India is on the right track when it comes to having three good openers in the squad, and one good backup option in case of injuries. Sharma should open for India both home and away. The headache for the Indian team management is with the second opener. Agarwal has extraordinary numbers at home but has struggled on foreign soil. Rahul has not played much in India, Gill has been struggling against the incoming deliveries and it will only create issues for him when he travels abroad.
All said and done, it looks like India will want to have Sharma and Rahul as their regular openers in Test Match, with either Gill or Agarwal as the third opener. Gill has age on his side, but Agarwal has experience which will be useful in challenging conditions and also has good stats at home. The question over workload management of Rahul and Sharma will remain, given that they are most likely to be the opening pair for the next T20 World Cup.