All change, said Virat Kohli after dropping Cheteshwar Pujara for the third Test, and the whole Indian middle order moved up a place. Leading by example, Captain Kohli kicked himself up to Number 3. Ajinkya Rahane followed his lead to No 4 and Ravichandran Ashwin, given his marvellous century in the first Test, found himself at No Ashwin stayed where he was. Kohli and Rahane, India's two most reliable Test batsman, left their settled places in the batting order to vacate No 5 for the returning prodigal, Rohit Sharma. Sharma is a specialist batsman in a very special sense of that term: he can only bat at No 5. There was no question of him replacing Pujara at 3. The last time he batted at No 3 was last year in Galle, and he scored 9 and 4 in two completed innings. A total of 13 runs. It was a sign: 3 was an unlucky number for Rohit. K.L. Rahul can bat at No 3, Pujara can be made to open the innings, Kohli can be moved up the order, Rahane has to take what he's given, but Mistah Sharma? He jive at five
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good batsman
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