Manish Pandey, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, Dinesh Karthik, Shreyas Iyer and MS Dhoni - all have one thing in common; they were all tried by India to fix their middle-order puzzle - the search for number four in the batting order. Replacing the likes of Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina and legendary Sachin Tendulkar - the occupants of this position for the most part of the last two decades - was never going to be easy. But what was even more surprising was the fact that a batsman-rich nation like India was struggling to find one such player for such a long time. With just about a dozen games to go before the ICC World Cup 2019, India on Monday found a suitable No.4 batsman at the Brabourne Cricket Stadium, Mumbai. On a flat deck against a rejuvenated West Indies, Ambati Rayudu walked in with India at 101/2 in the 17th over. After the cheap dismissals of in-form Virat Kohli and opener Shikhar Dhawan, the responsibility fell upon two ex-IPL teammates - Rayudu and Rohit Sharma - to take India towards a match-winning total but sans the loss of wickets given the unpredictability of India's lower middle-order. Rohit, who was already past his half-century, was looking good at his home ground. Amid Rohit's blitzkrieg, all eyes were on the Andhra-based batsman and how he approaches his innings when he doesn't have a target to chase, neither a team in crisis. The crisis had already been handled well by Rayudu in conjunction with his captain two matches back against the same opposition in Visakhapatnam. Then, India had lost both their openers at the score of 40. At the middle-order that hardly brought in any confidence before, the 73 (80) he scored ably supported a rampaging Kohli at the other end who seemed to be breaking records at his will. At Brabourne though, Rayudu's job was to preserve his wicket as Rohit was already eyeing a big one. And that's what he did. But after taking his time to settle in, Rayudu matched Rohit shot-for-shot and the way he handled the spinners was a beautiful sight to watch. from IndiaTV Sports: Google News Feed https://ift.tt/2JsHht7
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