5 areas India must work on after the Australia series

#4 The number 4 position

Should Ajinkya Rahane be tried at Number 4 once again?In the past 12-15 months, India have tried a lot of batsmen at the number 4 in their ODI lineup. Yet, none of them have made it their own through the said period. Players like Yuvraj Singh, Dhoni, Manish Pandey, and Rahul have tried their hand at the two-down.

Naturally, number 4 is a very important position for any ODI side. When Dhoni was pushed up to that position, he was pretty effective. But looking at the lack of experience in the lower middle order, he was pushed to his original position down the order yet again.

That gave the likes of Rahul and Pandey to establish themselves in the ODI team leading up to the ICC World Cup 2019. However, neither of them have been able to put up a score of substance. The string of single-digit scores for both batsmen has been a cause for concern for team India.

Due to such inconsistency at number 4, the lower middle order gets exposed and that at times can prove to be fatal for Kohli's team. The same was seen in the second T20I against Australia, where the top order collapsed and the lower order batsmen couldn’t salvage much.

The options before India are to get Dhoni bat at number 4 or try Ajinkya Rahane for the position one more time. The right-hander is a solid, classy and trustworthy batsman who can bat with the likes of Kohli, Hardik Pandya and Dhoni.

This problem needs to be addressed at the earliest or else it could be a huge weakness for opponents to capitalize on, more so in overseas conditions.