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It’s time for Shubman Gill & Co to reboot themselves for the classical format of the game as they take on Afghanistan, an undercooked side in Tests, in a one-off Test in Mullanpur from Saturday. The crucial No.3 spot in their batting line-up has been a musical chair of sorts and the team management is keen to find a long term solution to it.

 Ever since they wanted to look beyond Cheteshwar Pujara few years back, as many as five batters – Shubman Gill, Devdutt Padikkal, Sai Sudharsan, Karun Nair and Washington Sundar have all been tried in that position with rather modest returns. The current no.3 Sudharsan has played six tests in the No.3 position and has managed just an average of over 27.

 Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, India’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate said: ‘’There’s been a lot of changes in that spot and that’s not ideal, you know. You need to look at the incumbents for that role and and maybe stick with someone. It’s a difficult position to bat in and a very important position to bat. Dev comes in with a ton of runs in domestic cricket across all the formats and obviously Sai’s been high on runs in IPL with Gujarat, so they’re both in good form.

 “Whoever plays they’ll be given a bit of a run. That’s quite difficult with one Test match now and then we don’t play a Test match for another two months, and then we play two Test matches and then you don’t play for a while. So you know, we need to factor that in. The main point around there is we want to make a decision and then trust that person to grow into the role, and ideally quickly. Where we find ourselves in the WTC table? It’s probably something we could have done better leading up to this is maybe backing someone in a different spot,” he added.

  It will also be the first time that a Test match will be played in the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium in New Chandigarh.