Anyway, it was good to see Iyer and Shami hitting their strides effectively. Just imagine how much stronger the Indian lineup would get with Bumrah and Kohli added to it.
Bumrah sure. Shreyas played in place of Kohli, and he did exceptionally well.
Iyer is not anyone's replacement in the ODI format. He earned his spot by scoring many runs in difficult situations, including the last ODI WC.
In the absence of Virat (he bats at 3), they included debutant Jaiswal in the opening slot and pushed Gill to 3. I believe Gill will open again along with Rohit if Virat is fit for the next match.
I am not sure if you watched the post match interview of Shreyas where he mentions that he only got to play because Virat was injured, you can still watch it on Hotstar.
I did, and it was a rhetorical statement just for the media bite because he was sidelined from the test squad (for the right reasons; complacency) and later, lost the annual contract. Also hardly gets another look in T-20 (again for the right reasons; heavy competitive space).
But in ODI his position was never in danger. Due to their performance in WC, He and KL cemented their position in the middle order for good and will get a long rope even if they fail.
Spots in the playing XI are finalized based on who can bat where not who's available. Ofc sometimes they can airdrop someone but 99.99% of the times it goes like this.
First Choice Top 3/Openers vs Who are the next competitors for these positions?
First choice Middle order vs Who are the competitors.
Same with AL (Seam-Spin) and Bowlers (Spin-Seam)
India failed to win ICC tournaments even they are being held at the sub-continent. They maybe the strongest team, and BCCI is the richest board by some distance. But their performance during ICC tournaments has been pathetic. And one of the main reasons for this has been poor selection policies.
We should have won the last Champions Trophy final, 2019 WC semi (potentially WC) and 2023 ODI WC Final because we had an A+ team and almost every player was in God mode form.
India had no business to win any T-20 WC in the last 6-7 years because we had an outdated formula of " Anchoring" which they dished out in the last T-20 WC.
Yes, we lost the last 2 WTC finals because of selection (playing XI, not squad, the squad was goated) and braindead captaincy.
Poor performers such as Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma are being retained, while players such as Karun Nair and Abhimanyu Easwaran, who has been performing well in domestic cricket are being ignored.
Bad and ignorant take because it's based on recency bias, which clouds everyone's judgment. One should never mix the format and make a generic statement.