Former England captain Michael Vaughan has made a surprising suggestion that India should have put young Yashasvi Jaiswal on the flight to England as KL Rahul’s replacement for the WTC Final 2023 against Australia.
Yashasvi has shown tremendous form in the IPL 2023. The left-handed Rajasthan Royals opener is currently the second-highest scorer in the tournament with 575 runs. The southpaw is averaging 52 with a strike rate of 162 and has notched up 1 century and 4 fifties. He remained just 2 runs short of another century, against KKR at the Eden, where he blasted the fastest IPL fifty off 13 balls.
The BCCI selectors and management have named Ishan Kishan as the replacement for KL Rahul – Kishan will be the backup keeper for KS Bharat, a role earlier decided for KL Rahul – in the WTC Final squad.
Vaughan, though, took to Twitter to reveal that he would have picked the in-form Yashasvi Jaiswal as the middle-order replacement of KL Rahul.
Vaughan tweeted, “I would have selected @ybj_19 as KL Rahuls replacement for the World Test championship final … He is that good .. he is going to be a superstar .. #India.”
Here is Vaughan’s tweet on Yashasvi Jaiswal:
I would have selected @ybj_19 as KL Rahuls replacement for the World Test championship final … He is that good .. he is going to be a superstar .. #India
— Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) May 11, 2023
While Vaughan’s tweet and opinion came on the back of Jaiswal’s astonishing IPL form, the young batter from Mumbai has been a prolific run-scorer in red-ball domestic cricket as well.
In 15 first-class matches, Jaiswal has ransacked 1845 runs at a terrific average of 80 and strike rate of 67. The left-hander has cracked 9 centuries and 2 fifties in his red-ball domestic career, highlighting his penchant of converting 50s into big scores. He has a best of 265 in first-class cricket. Apart from his thunderous form in Ranji Trophy, Jaiswal has slammed centuries in Duleep and Irani Trophy matches as well.
India will play Australia in the WTC Final from June 7 at The Oval.
Here is India’s squad for WTC final: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Ishan Kishan, KS Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat