As India's Test team moves into a new era, a look at the four main pillars of their batting – KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill – and what the England series means for their careers.
The Indian Test team is entering the England series in a state of flux. For a team historically renowned for its batting pedigree, India’s freshly-assembled lineup is low on experience but high on promise.
Through India’s journey as a formidable Test side across the 2000s, the batting revolved around the quartet of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman, supported by Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni. The core then switched to Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and later Rohit Sharma.
As a fresh start beckons, India’s core changes once again.
Let’s start with Yashasvi Jaiswal. At 23, he’s proven himself at every level so far. Since his Test debut, no opener in the world has scored more runs or hit more centuries. No player has hit more sixes. He’s already guaranteed a place in future fab four discussion.
A slight bit of hesitation still sits somewhere. Bully on Indian wickets, can he maintain a similar degree of success outside, consistently? His debut in the Caribbean saw him graft his way to an eight-hour effort. He added a fifty to that next game, passing the first test abroad, albeit on an easier assignment.
Then came the South Africa tour, where he failed to cross 30 four times. Questions quickly arose about his adaptability and patience for long days.
The thing with Jaiswal is, he’s never looked like a finished product. It also means there’s so much more to wait for.
"His technique was adequate but a little one-sided: he was mainly an off side player with little to no leg-side game,” Zubin Bharucha, Rajasthan Royals’ director of high performance, told Wisden last year. “But the character was evident immediately as he turned up to our trials and scooped the first ball of the day for four."
After a forgettable debut IPL season, where he looked out-of-depth to muscle his way through T20s, Jaiswal worked on his power-hitting, to the extent that JaisBall is now an acceptable term in cricketing parlance. Against the red ball, Jaiswal scored heavily at all levels, it was about bringing the same adaptability into newer conditions.
The Australia tour was supposed to be the first real litmus test, and an eight-ball duck raised eyebrows once again. True, Jaiswal is slightly loose outside the off-stump early on, but so are scores of other batters. He does have a tendency to go slightly overboard with his attacking instincts, but it’s a balance he’s still learning. In the very same Test, he managed a ravishing 161, adjusting to the bounce and pace quickly.
After another set of hits and misses, he hit twin eighties in Melbourne.
Jaiswal is unique in his appetite for run-scoring and mental resilience. Few can switch between adhesion and aggression the way he does in Tests. Yes, he’s never played first-class cricket in England before this, and could be exposed to the vagaries of a new territory. But what Jaiswal has shown so far is a pure aptitude to adapt, and overcome – nay dominate – new terrains.
Shubman Gill has grown aplenty from the prodigy with a label-less bat in 2021, battling Australia’s pace battery without an elbow guard. The collars still stay up, but have the comfort of the captain’s blazer around them. The graduation feels quick, but not surprising. He was bound to be the next-big thing, but was also dropped briefly during India’s last tour. The big shoes have been left for him to try on, but also at a time when he’s yet to fully form as a Test batter.
All five of his centuries have come in Asia: four in India, one in Bangladesh. Outside Asia, Gill is seen to falter before a good score. In Australia, he averages 35, in England 15, in South Africa 19 and in the West Indies 23. Will the early push to captaincy make or break him?
It seems far back, but his only other notable English experience came through his 2022 stint with Glamorgan, where his scores read 92, 22, 11 and 119. His six Test innings in England, without a 30-plus score, presents a big worry. Then again, Virat Kohli averaged 13.40 after his first ten innings in England.
There’s a lot riding on Gill: new leader, future talisman, all-format great?
For many, Gill is a generational talent waiting to bloom; against the white ball, he’s certainly proven that. To kick off his course correction, he has to go big on this tour. A feeble return could rattle his dreamy progression. And we’ve seen it all too often in Indian cricket: an early spring doesn’t always last long.
Rishabh Pant, one U19 batch senior to Gill, will walk out for his third tour of England. The showings so far typify Pant’s career: two backs-to-the-wall centuries, seven single-digit scores, and a string of promising starts that didn’t materialise. He’s a firecracker – one-of-its-kind, untempered, somewhat erratic.
“He’s an impact player, don’t think there’s any reason to change his batting style,” K Bhaskar Pillai, Pant’s former Delhi coach, told Wisden in 2022. “Got all the shots in his repertoire. He can really change the game in about half-hour if he survives, you see the scoreboard ticking.”
“He’s still young, he’s got time,” he had said back then. “The maturity will slowly come, and he will be more responsible as the years go by. The consistency part is something the [Indian] management is looking from him, since now he is playing as a sixth batsman, pure batsman, they expect runs from him on a regular basis. It’s a matter of time.”
Post his cruel car accident, Pant has only teased with his brilliance without completely exhibiting it. The Australia tour was an array of half-complete innings, and with a flurry of retirements, he’s now gone up in the seniority scale. The added responsibility could threaten to mellow his bravado, as was seen for the majority of this IPL. Not the free-spirited Pant the world fell in love with, but a seemingly more burdened soul.
He’s not the first-choice in T20Is anymore, and has Dhruv Jurel snapping at his heels in Tests. And still, you can bet on Pant to turn around a series scoreline with a couple of his magical knocks. At 27, Pant has already achieved more than most Indian Test keepers ever did, and there’s still lots of time to enter all-time great heights.
Seven years ago, on another England tour, Pant had broken into the Test team. This one could be the passage to Pant 2.0.
The eldest of them all, KL Rahul stands at a strange juncture in his Test career. Behind him lie a few significant peaks, strung together with periods of mediocrity. Among the 148 batters in Test history to bat in the top six at least a hundred times, Rahul’s average is the tenth lowest. On the flipside, he’s among the select group of eight Indian batters to score a Test century in England, Australia and South Africa.
At 33, Rahul is reaching the point batters generally start to decline. For two years between 2019 and 2021, he did not play a single Test. Since then, he’s batted at five different positions, led the team in South Africa and Bangladesh, and even kept wicket.
It reminds of another Rahul who selflessly switched roles for the team two decades ago. This one is in danger of finishing with an underachieved career, his prime spent in the shadows of others’ glory. And yet, Rahul remains as essential as ever to this Test team: a senior figure who knows his ways around different conditions, is a calming presence on youngsters, and can bat just about anywhere in the order.
To his benefit, Rahul walks into the England tour high on confidence, and clarity over his role. At the IPL, he had one of his most successful seasons, and clicked into Test mode soon after landing in the UK, scoring 116 & 51 in the tour game against England Lions.
“It is only about the mind, his self-belief,” KL Rahul’s childhood coach Samuel Jayaraj told Wisden about his IPL form in May. “He looks well-matured now. He is hitting it very well. He knows now – my order is this, my role in the team. It started very well from the Champions Trophy itself.”
Perhaps, that was one of the biggest reasons for Rahul’s underwhelming performances: a lack of clarity over his role, and immense scrutiny when things didn’t go right.
In ODIs, Rahul started flourishing not long after his role at No.5 was set. “You have a plan, you will play down the order and face the last few overs, facing the last 24-30 balls,” Jayaraj says. “You know exactly the role you have to do and finish the game.”
“No mercy and no fear. You see his body language during the Champions Trophy. [In the semi-final against Australia] He went to Virat and said ‘I'll do it.’”
With his seniors gone, Rahul seemingly has a fixed role in the Test side, at least for now. He is expected to open alongside Jaiswal, a role he’s played most of his domestic cricket in, and a responsibility Jayaraj says he was always groomed for.
“I remember that Kelvinator ad – the coolest one,” Jayaraj recalls a TV advert from the 1990s, referring to Rahul’s unflappable spirit. Across the first half of the Australia tour, Rahul did look like the coolest one, biding his time and gradually building on his starts. There’s a late-series burnout issue to solve, but if he’s able to carry his white-ball consistency into Test cricket, Rahul could enjoy a belated but much-deserved renaissance.
All four are at different stages of their Test careers, but collectively form the fulcrum of India’s batting present and future. The England tour is their first big test: a crucial first step in India’s redevelopment over the next half a decade. It remains to be seen if this “fab four” carries forward India's batting legacy, or disbands much earlier.
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