India will paint themselves into a corner: Aakash Chopra wants a full-time wicket-keeper in ODI squad 

Indian captain Virat Kohli has said that KL Rahul would continue batting in the middle-order along with donning the wicket-keeping gloves as it would give India a lot of balance and options in ODIs. Rishabh Pant, who is the regular wicket-keeper in the squad, will have to continue to sit out. However, this tactic has not convinced former India batsman Aakash Chopra, who wants the selectors to try and test out Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson, and Pant.

“When and how are we going to know whether Pant or Sanju Samson or Ishan Kishen or someone else is to be the second wicketkeeper in the side,” Aakash Chopra writes in his column for ESPNCricinfo.

India don’t pick a full-time keeper in their ODI playing XIs too, they will paint themselves into a corner, where they will need to pick someone as a backup purely on gut feel and not going by his performances,” Chopra further adds.

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Chopra goes on to write that since KL Rahul has not trained as a wicket-keeper for the majority of his career, there can be injuries on the way and this will be detrimental for India in the longer run. He also wrote about how Adam Gilchrist took care of the dual role quite efficiently, but then, he always trained his body.

His body might not be used to keeping wicket for three and a half hours and then opening the innings half an hour later. Yes, I hear you, Adam Gilchrist could do it, but then, he also trained his wicket-keeping muscles all his cricket-playing life. Thousands of hours of keeping develop and strengthen the muscles required to perform that role. And keeping in a 50-over game is very different from keeping in a T20I.

It will be interesting to see the combination India persists with not only in this ODI series but also in the future. Rahul has been in sensational form with the bat and has been quite secure with the gloves as well and this has given India a good headache to have.