“That’s the way cricket is meant to be played,” Gambhir said of Axar’s promotion. “I know a lot of people talk about it, but that’s the way we got to play the game, and that’s the way cricket should be played. It’s not about the batting order, it’s about who can create what impact. And it’s about just if you have the option of putting a quality left-hand batter in the middle; why won’t you do that?
“Why would you want to have top five as right-handers? We don’t look at averages and stats and all that stuff. We look at who can deliver more at that number. And Axar has done fabulously well. Both the games [in which] he got the opportunity, he delivered for us. I know there will always be talk – there will always be people talking about it – but I think that’s the way we want to go in future as well.”
That Gambhir likes right-left combinations is no secret. When he came back to Kolkata Knight Riders as a mentor, their right-left partnerships went up from 58% in 2022 and 2023, to 74% in 2024. Having said that, it doesn’t seem to be an unhealthy obsession. For example, it doesn’t penalise Rahul, who has done his job in the middle order well, just for being a right-hand batter.
Gambhir: Wanted to see what Jaiswal can bring to the table
“He wasn’t supposed to be benched throughout the series,” Gambhir said. “We wanted to give Yashasvi a go in the first game and see what he can bring to the table because he was in really good form in Australia. So we wanted to see what kind of an innings can he play. I know you can’t judge someone by one innings, but we always knew that Shreyas is going to be an important player for us. What he’s done at No. 4, be it the World Cup or forget about even the World Cup, he’s just an important player.
“So sometimes when you’ve only got three games, you want to try and rotate your squad as well. See, like for today, we could have easily played Shami but we wanted to give Arsh a go. We could have played Jadeja as well, but we gave Washi a go as well. So when you’ve got Champions Trophy around the corner, you want to try and maximise these three games and try and give everyone an opportunity. Shreyas was always in the scheme of things, and good that he played all the three games.”
