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Journalism of Courage
India’s head coach Rahul Dravid hasn’t ruled out Shubman Gill, who is down with dengue, from their opening match against Australia at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Sunday. Gill, who travelled with the Indian team to Chennai on Tuesday, is recovering at the team hotel and hasn’t taken part in their training sessions over the past three days.
In case the opener doesn’t recover in time, it is understood that India will pair Ishan Kishan at the top with skipper Rohit Sharma.
“He’s certainly feeling better today than he was yesterday so that’s a positive. But the medical team is monitoring him on a day to day basis, so we’ll see. I mean certainly the medical team haven’t ruled him out as yet.
But so we’ll keep monitoring him on a day to day basis. We’ve got 36 hours so yeah we’ll obviously wait to take a decision at the last minute if we possibly can. We’ll see how he feels day after tomorrow (Sunday),” Dravid said.
However, with just one more day to go for the fixture and the conditions in Chennai being on the hotter side, it remains to be seen if India will risk playing Gill, especially when they have an in-form Kishan in the mix.
While KL Rahul can also bat at the top, which in turn will open up a space for Suryakumar Yadav to bat in the middle-order, such a rejig for one game could pose issues going forward. In that context, opening with Ishan would make it easy when Gill regains full fitness.
