Former India pacer Zaheer Khan was thoroughly impressed by the batting performances of Shardul Thakur and Deepak Chahar in the recently-concluded ODI series against South Africa.
Although India lost the series, and didn’t get the answers to all of their questions, the addition of Thakur in the first two ODIs and Chahar in the third ODI helped them with their much-desired batting depth.
Chahar scored 54 off 34 balls, bringing India close to the target but failed to hang on till the last over. This was after he had been impressive with the ball taking 2 wickets.
Thakur stroked two fluent innings of 50* and 40* in the first two ODIs, but was flat with the ball.
Zaheer Khan was effusive in praise for the batting efforts of both the bowling all-rounders. He recalled that Chahar had last year played a similar match-winning knock against Sri Lanka while Thakur has proven his batting abilities in the past as well.
In a discussion with Cricbuzz, Zaheer Khan said, “Whenever he (Deepak Chahar) got the opportunity, he has performed. He batted with brilliant strike rate as well (in the final ODI). There was a time during his innings when we needed run-a-ball, the way he ran doubles at a consistent rate deserves appreciation. He played according to the situation in the game. He had planned his innings. And we’ve seen this before as well.”
“It’s a big positive. It’s not as if he has done this only once. He has done it again. Even if we talk about Shardul, he deserves appreciation as well. Shardul has also batted efficiently.”
Since Ravindra Jadeja was not fit for the South Africa series, India tried Ravichandran Ashwin and Jayant Yadav as the spinning all-rounder and Thakur and Chahar as the pace-bowling all-rounder. However, the team lacked the balance that Jadeja provides with bat and ball.
Zaheer Khan then proposed an untried idea: he reckons India can play both Chahar and Thakur in the same eleven when Jadeja returns to play at number 6. This is also because of the absence of the injured and out-of-form Hardik Pandya.
Playing both Thakur and Chahar in the same eleven with Jadeja at number 6 will add the batting depth that India want, and will also give the captain six bowling options to play with.
“There could also be an option of both playing together. If it happens, it will be an added advantage because right now, we’re looking at sixth bowling option. When Ravindra Jadeja returns, can he bat at number 6? Considering that, if we play both together, it will benefit India and we can go forward thinking about this.
“In future when we play many big series, I think you can play both together in the playing XI and think about using them both because both have played efficiently,” the 2011 World Cup winning pacer added.
India’s next series is at home West Indies next month.
