Different Sides of the Pitch: India’s All-Left-Handed Cricketing Powerhouse?

While India lifted the T20 World Cup trophy this year in our home soil, I have often been interested in teams that have negligible to narrow chances to win; mostly the associates and certain affiliate nations who somehow qualify for the tournament. In this World Cup, the Netherlands Cricket Team came to attention for their unique 15-man squad that comprised right-hand batters throughout their line-up. This meant at any given time, any combination of batsmen on the crease would be completely right-handed. While there were certain oddities like Vikramjeet Singh and Roelof van der Merwe who are occasional left-hand bowlers, it is also a significant disadvantage while considering the natural shot-selection angles for all batsmen. 

This made me think: What if India had to field a team comprised of all left-handers? After all, right-handed players in India were a historical majority as well. Growing up, we had only known of few formidable examples like Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh or Zaheer Khan who were legends in their own right. With time, these players have not only influenced but inspired a horde of cricketers to walk on their path. Today, if we are presented with the squad depth of India and the humongous choice from the selectors’ side, we can consider the fact that having a completely left-handed squad would make little to no difference.

In the opening, there would be a combination of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Abhishek Sharma, who would bamboozle the opponents with their technique and power-hitting capabilities. As we go down the line, we have several options like Tilak Verma, Sai Sudarshan and Ishan Kishan for the batter at three, four and five. When we talk about wicketkeeping batsmen, we also have the option of Rishabh Pant along with Ishan Kishan.

Further down the line, we could rope in the explosive Rinku Singh and all-rounder options of Shivam Dube and the veteran Ravindra Jadeja. The last three would consist of a bowling line-up of Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav and Arshdeep Singh, which can also pretty much form the standard bowling line-up in Indian cricket. Despite losing the pace spearhead of Jasprit Bumrah in the bowling department, the bowlers still manage to appear world-class. Besides, there would be other options such as Washington Sundar, Khaleel Ahmed, Devdutt Paddikal and Krunal Pandya who could make into the T20 squad but would be more preferred in the starting line-up if we had to create a test or ODI side.

[Authored by Shreyan Laha)

Pic Credits: Lokapally, V. (2020, June 10) Top 10 Indian left-hand batsmen who left a lasting impression. The Hindu. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/webpage-website-references

Fun Fact: The person in the photo is WV Raman. Widely regarded as one of the first highly rated left-handers and known for his knock of 83 at Chennai in 1988 vs West Indies.