3 reasons why Shubman Gill should bat at No. 5 in the 1st Test against Australia

Shreyas Iyer has been ruled out of India's first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia, which will take place in Nagpur, starting on Thursday, February 9.

Shreyas will need more rehabilitation time to recover from the back injury that kept him out of the white-ball series against New Zealand. The Mumbai batter's injury leaves the No. 5 spot vacant with two contenders in Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav fighting for the role.

A section of former cricketers has backed Gill, who is technically an opener, to be a long-term middle-order option for India in the red-ball format.

On that note, let's take a look at three reasons why Gill should bat at No. 5 in the first Test against Australia.

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#3 Not disturbing a settled opening combination

Team India have relied on Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul as their go-to opening combination in Tests for quite some time now. However, they turned to Shubman Gill during the two-match series against Bangladesh when Rohit was ruled out with a broken thumb.

With immense experience playing in Indian conditions, the think tank would not want to tinker with the opening combination. However, they will also be tempted to use Gill's red-hot form, which makes him a front-runner for the No. 5 spot.

The Punjab lad has been India's highest scorer across white-ball formats in 2023 so far, scoring 769 runs in 12 matches.

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#2 Previous experience of playing Test cricket

With Shreyas Iyer ruled out of the first Test, there is likely to be a toss-up between Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav for the No. 5 spot in the playing XI.

Gill looks to be the front-runner here given his experience of playing red-ball cricket at the highest level. He also enjoys a decent record against Australia, scoring 259 runs in three games at an average of 51.80 during the 2020-21 tour.

Suryakumar boasts a decent record in first-class cricket but is yet to make his Test debut. Having a debutant against a star-studded Aussie bowling attack might make India's middle order a bit weak.

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#1 Aggressive option in the middle order

With Rishabh Pant ruled out of the series after a car crash, India will need a middle-order enforcer who can score quick runs and take the attack to the opposition.

Being an attacking batter by instinct, Shubman Gill will be a decent option to invest in the middle order. He is also a very good player of spin bowling and can come down the track to keep the likes of Nathan Lyon at bay.

It remains to be seen who bats at No. 5 for India in the first Test against Australia at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur.

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