The Indian cricket team’s dependable middle-order batsman Shreyas Iyer missed the 4th and the final match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test series vs Australia despite fielding in the first inning.
The Indian cricket team have once again won the all important Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test series against rivals Australia to defend the Trophy.
The Indian team won the series 2-1 after having won the first 2 matches and then lost the 3rd match while the 4th match ended in a draw. Shreyas Iyer missed the first match due to injury but returned to the team for the 2nd and the 3rd Test. He was part of the Playing XI in the 4th Test as well and did fielding as well, however, when the Indian team was batting, Iyer complained of back pain and was ruled out of the remainder of the 4th Test.
He didn’t even come to bat during the Indian team’s inning. With the Test series now over, both the teams will now play a 3 match ODI series starting from 17th March and Shreyas Iyer has not recovered yet and is set to miss the series.
In such a situation, the question is, who could be his replacement in the team. Let us have a look at 3 potential replacement of Shreyas Iyer in the Indian team for the upcoming ODI series vs Australia. (The list has been made by looking at the recent squad selection).
Rahul Tripathi
Rahul Tripathi displayed his aggressive cricket nature in the given opportunity he got in Indian cricket team in T20I squad. He has been a part of the Indian squad for some ODI series but have never played any matches yet. He could be one of the batter who may be included in the team for the series. He has played 53 List-A matches and has scored 1782 runs.
Rajat Patidar
Rajat Patidar, the Madhya Pradesh middle-order batter made headlines after playing some wonderful knocks for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the IPL. He has been in the Indian team’s squad in both the ODI and T20I series’ recently but is yet to make his debut. The 29-years-old has played 51 List-A matches and has scored 1648 runs.
Nitish Rana
The final name in our list is a pick of our own. The Delhi and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR)’s left-handed batsman Nitish Rana could be a great addition in the team and will also be handy in the middle-order as he is a left-hand batter and Team India have mostly right-hand batters in the middle-order, so it will bring the left and right combination. Other than, Nitish Rana can be called a Suresh Raina 2.0 as he is also able to bowl and can easily be team India’s 6th or 7th choice bowler. However, despite making his debut in the year 2021, he has not got much opportunity as he has played only 1 ODI and scored 7 runs in that.
