India's Flexible Batting Order: Kishan Is the Only True Pivot, Leave Varma Alone, Protect Sooryavanshi

February 2026, the first IPL mega auction in Mumbai. I was covering the Deccan Chargers for a Hyderabad daily, and watched my own franchise spend $1.35 million on Andrew Symonds and pick a 20-year-old Rohit Sharma for under a million. That day I built my one-page "purse math" sheet — retention value, overseas slots, injury risk. I didn't know that seventeen years later I would apply that same sheet to India's T20I batting order. Because a budget is a confession, and so is a batting order. When four openers insist on being in the same XI, one of them gets pushed to No.3 — the only question is who, and what it costs.

In the second T20I against New Zealand, Ishan Kishan's groin injury forced an experiment the team management probably never wanted. The opening pair of Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma was retained, and 20-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was sent in at No.3. The result: Sooryavanshi looked out of sorts at three, and the moment he returned to opening, a record powerplay stand followed. A debate erupted in the media and commentary box — is a flexible batting order a modern necessity or needless tinkering? Former cricketers like Wasim Jaffer, Pravin Amre and Venkatesh Prasad are speaking in favour of flexibility. But the biggest weakness of this entire debate is that it rests not on data but on the words of legends — and the data that exists supports only one player for flexibility, not all.

Ishan Kishan is this team's only proven flexible weapon. His record at No.3 is 35.9 average and 171.2 strike rate in 28 matches — a settled No.3 profile, large sample, reliable. As opener he has played only five matches, but his strike rate there is 193.4. Average nearly the same (35.2), pace much faster. Five matches is no basis for policy, but the pattern is clear: Kishan scores wherever you put him — the only difference is that at the top he starts faster and at three he builds slightly. If the team wants a player who can knit the order together without being caught in the crowd of four openers, that is Kishan. He is the pivot of flexibility, and the team has so far used him with the least flexibility — he either plays at three or opens, never in between.

There is no argument for sending Tilak Varma to No.3 just because he looks like a batter. At No.5 his strike rate is 145, averaging 38.7 in 17 matches. At No.3 his average is 16.4 and strike rate 108.5 in seven matches — a swing of roughly 36 points. It is a small sample, but the direction is so clear that ignoring it would be self-deception. Varma's game is built for middle-overs-to-death construction: watching the ball, finding gaps, timing the big shot. New-ball pace and swing are not part of his game. When you send a specialist finisher to No.3, you don't just give the team an innings — you strip away his strength. If the team truly believes in flexibility, it must accept that some players are flexible and some are not — and Varma should stay at No.5.

Venkatesh Prasad's argument for trying Samson at No.3 is that the senior player should absorb the disruption, not the youngster. That argument rests on leadership and culture, not performance data. And the truth is that Samson's No.3 numbers — three matches, 9.0 average — are meaningless. Such a small sample proves neither that he cannot bat at three nor that he can. If you send Samson to three on the basis of three matches, you are buying an unknown risk in the name of a senior player's rhythm. Prasad's point sounds good — the senior steps up — but that logic may work in Test cricket; in T20, where every ball has a price, you don't want your most experienced opener sitting in a slot where he is judged in seven balls.

And most importantly: Sooryavanshi's failure at No.3 is a one-innings story, not a trend. A young opener whose entire technique is built on new-ball pace and bounce is a risk at three — but the risk is possible, not proven. Kishan's groin injury was the reason for the experiment, not a strategic decision. If the team management turns this into policy, it will convert an injury-forced necessity into a permanent principle — and that is the biggest danger. Sooryavanshi is 20, his development has just begun; putting him in a new position every match will scatter his game, not shape it.

Now the part where I stand against my own argument. I said the data for flexibility is weak — but I also accept that if India is to win a World Cup, it must play one of its four best openers at No.3, because there is no other way to play all four. This is a luxury problem, not a crisis. But the solution is not to try every player everywhere. The solution is to pick the one player whose game works in both places — and that is Kishan. Samson and Abhishek are settled at the top (Samson: 27 matches, 30.1 average, 177.6 strike rate; Abhishek's data points the same way), Sooryavanshi should be allowed to develop as an opener, and Kishan should stay at three — unless he himself returns to opening. Varma stays at No.5. That is selective flexibility, not universal. My fear is that the next time the team management picks a squad, it may push Sooryavanshi to three again out of Kishan's injury — and the cycle will continue.

I was the only woman in the press box at the Gymkhana Ground in Secunderabad in 2026, when Hyderabad collapsed from 61/1 to 118. That day I wrote that a calendar of three matches in 19 days, not mental weakness, was making Indian batters fragile. A senior colleague said it was a blog, not a report. I didn't throw away that fixture list. Even today, when I see Sooryavanshi at three, I remember that — a player's fragility is often the system's fragility, and the surest sign of a fragile system is that it changes its rawest player first.

So the next time you look at a scorecard and find Sooryavanshi at No.3 again, don't ask why he failed — ask who sent him there, and why. The answer will probably be: because Kishan is not fit yet, and the team chose to protect the senior. This is an injury story that no highlight reel keeps — but it is the story that will decide what India's batting order looks like at next year's T20 World Cup.