Should India have picked Dhawan, Shaw, or Samson as opener in T20 World Cup in Australia?

Team India suffered a disappointing exit from the T20 World Cup on November 10 after England registered an emphatic 10-wicket win in the all-important semi-final. After setting a target of 169 runs, the Men in Blue failed to dismiss any of the English batsmen, who chased down the target with four overs to spare.

Following a disappointing performance from Team India, the management will need to reflect on the side's performance. Questions are likely to be asked of captain Rohit Sharma and fellow opener KL Rahul as even though the Men in Blue reached the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup, there was little contribution from them. Rahul and Rohit were also poor during the last T20 World Cup in UAE as they failed to perform in crucial matches against Pakistan and New Zealand. 

Hence, in hindsight, some will also believe that perhaps the Indian selectors should have considered picking Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw or Sanju Samson instead of Rohit and/or Rahul. Here is a look at a stats comparison of Rohit and Rahul's performance at the T20 World Cup 2022 to that of Dhawan, Shaw and Samson in 2022.

Should India have picked Dhawan, Shaw or Samson?

KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma's performance at T20 World Cup 2022

Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw & Sanju Samson's stats

As seen in the stats above, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul have been extremely inconsistent with the bat during the T20 World Cup as barring one or two fifties from each of them, they failed to make a decent score in any of their other innings. In stark contrast, Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw and Sanju Samson have a better overall strike rate and average than Rohit or Rahul had at this edition of the T20 World Cup.

As for Dhawan, he was dropped from T20Is completely in 2022 due to his low strike rate. Meanwhile, Shaw was presumably not considered because of his lack of experience in T20I cricket. As for Samson, even though he does open, most of his runs recently have come lower down the order, positions where Team India already have good quality players.