R Ashwin Has a Solution for India's Batting Concern That Has Rahul Dravid Concerned

India suffered a 3-2 loss at the hands of West Indies, their first-ever bilateral series defeat to the Windies since 2006. West Indies had won the second T20, also at Providence Stadium, by two wickets after the hosts also won the opener by four runs in Tarouba, Trinidad. India won the third T20 by seven wickets in Providence, Guyana, before the series moved to Florida and won the fourth match by nine wickets. Windies went onto clinch the series by winning the fifth clash by eight wickets.

Many pointed out India’s lack of batting depth as one of the contributing factors to their hummiliating loss, with the Hardik Pandya-led side optiong to go with speciallist bowlers who could not contribute with the bat.

India head coach Rahul Dravid acknowldged the issue, saying that India’s squad for the matches did not leave much room for trying out different conbinations.

“I think in terms of our squad here, probably it didn’t allow us the flexibility in some ways to be able to change the combinations a little bit. But I think going forward, we’ve got to look at certain areas in which we can get better. Finding depth in our batting has been an area we are trying to address. We are trying to do the best we possibly can but that’s certainly an area we can look at, how we cannot weaken our bowling attack but ensure we have a certain amount of depth in batting,” Dravid said after the fifth and final T20I.

Ahead of the ACC Asian Cup and the ICC World Cup, to be played in the 50-over format, Ravichandran Ashwin feels Shardul Thakur can be the link for India in terms of a bowler who can bat.

“You don’t want your tail to start so early, and that’s why you need someone like Shardul Thakur to come and smash a few balls coming in at No. 8. But you should play your best batters and bowlers to win a match. At the same time, if you needed 36 to win from 30 balls when you are six down, you should have the ability to close down such games as well. So, that is the conundrum that India will go into ahead of the World Cup. If they play Kuldeep and Chahal together, then it gets to a situation where Kuldeep has to bat at No. 8,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.