The former Australian player Matthew Hayden rejects the idea of Jadeja replacing the position of the All-rounder Hardik Pandya for the match against New Zealand.
Matthew Hayden on India’s playing 11
With the injury of Hardik Pandya, the Indian side has to go with a replacement for the All-rounder during the crucial match against New Zealand.
India has obtained their fourth consecutive win in the ICC World Cup 2023 and stands second in the points table. The side had a major setback as the all-rounder Hardik Pandya was injured during the match against Afghanistan.
After the discussion with Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, Hardik Pandya walked out of the stadium and ruled out of the match.
He received treatment at NCA Bengaluru and will be missing the fixture against New Zealand.
Pandya has been supporting the pacers during the tournament and his services aren’t needed as a batter so far, the match against table-topper New Zealand is expected to be India’s biggest challenge and with his omission from the playing 11, India has to go in with either specialist batter Suryakumar Yadav or, specialist fast bowler Mohammed Shami.
One of those two will be replacing the All-rounder who can do both. On this occasion, Former Australian cricket Matthew Hayden said that there is no one to replace Pandya.
“He is that good an all-rounder at the moment, and when you think back into the history of the way he’s been performing, whenever he’s not playing for any team there is always a balance issue. He provides that great stability,” said Hayden.
Hayden said that Pandya covered India in the batting lineup. He continued that promoting Jadeja into his position instead of getting a special batter would break the Indian batting line-up.
“The good thing for India is that they’ve got batting cover. Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan can easily slot into that role, and then you get your specialist seamer Mohammad Shami back into the side so that also would be a very good side.
I don’t think you can have Jadeja batting up the order, I feel that’s a fragility in the Indian batting lineup. The best combination is to get a specialist batter in there, and that way then you have an option to pick a specialist seam bowler as well in Shami,” he said.
With India and New Zealand set to play on Sunday, both sides are the only teams to have remained unbeaten in the tournament so far and are level in the points. New Zealand tops the points table instead of the hosts on the basis of their net run rate.
The top position of the table will be decided by the victory in the match which is scheduled for October 22 at HPCA Stadium.
