He’s the most qualified batsman in any team. From facing the swinging new ball to tackling the turn, from stitching together the top-order to working the ball around with the middle order. Yet, in the ICC Champions Trophy, this is one slot that has simply failed to click.

You blame it on experimentation — ask India, the West Indies and England— or you could simply point to the nature of pitches, but one single statistic highlights the strange jinx that has hovered over this crucial batting slot. Just 455 runs have been garnered at an average of 15.6 in 29 innings at this year’s edition, one half-century knock from Bangladesh’s Aftab Ahmed notwithstanding. And, No 3 batsmen have crossed double figures only 14 times.

Veterans of the game point to the flip-flops in the batting order. The trend, they say, can only be reversed if teams conform to the age-old line: have your best technician at No 3. Now look at some of the odd names that have occupied this slot in this tournament: Irfan Pathan, Dwayne Bravo, Herschelle Gibbs and Kevin Pietersen. Then let’s ask the big question: why?

Pointing to Pathan’s failure, Sunil Gavaskar writes: “When Dravid comes in to bat, there’s already pressure with two wickets gone early.” Then there’s Ravi Shastri who calls India’s No 3 muddle a “serial quarrel” with Indian fans. “You keep thrusting Pathan at No 3. Bull-headedness is one thing but carrying on in the same vein is foolhardiness”.

South African Daryl Cullinan, one of the world’s best No 3s — except when it came to facing Shane Warne — feels that as far as his team is concerned, the choice is clear: Jacques Kallis. “If Mickey Arthur (South Africa coach) wants to really play brave cricket he should bat Kallis in the most important and most pivotal position in one-day batting — No 3 instead of in the middle where he has a convenient excuse to knock it around because the top order has failed again. Kallis also needs a great season to be remembered for winning trophies and not only for being SA’s greatest cricket statistic! His best chance in achieving this will be to bat at three,” he writes.

... contd.