Former India pacer Zaheer Khan says that 'excessive flexibility' under coach Gautam Gambhir could hurt the team. Zaheer's comments could be about the changing batting order in the first two ODIs against England in the ongoing series. The team, however, won both matches by four wickets.  

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“You’ve said that you’ve got to have flexibility. Number one and two will be there, but the others are going to be flexible. Within that flexibility, some rules also apply. There are certain protocols you have to follow. Certain communication needs to happen, which is going to streamline things,” Zaheer said while talking on cricket news website Cricbuzz.

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“Otherwise, you are creating insecurity, which at some stage will come back and hurt you. You don’t want it to be the case. So you’ve got to be prepared to deal with that situation.”

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“The situation has become dynamic if you have to compare Rahul Dravid’s approach and Gautam Gambhir’s approach. You can say it’s good, bad, or ugly or you can say how do we adapt?

“Each individual is a part of this system, be it the senior management or the think tank, be it the players, be it the selectors. They will have to gauge it and the entire system needs to be streamlined for the wheel to turn properly,” he added.

India experiment with batting order ahead of Champions Trophy

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In the first two ODIs against England, India sent Shreyas Iyer to bat at number four followed by left-hand all-rounder Axar Patel and wicketkeeper-batter KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya and then Ravindra Jadeja.

Notably, Rahul was picked over Rishabh Pant for the ODIs - the first-choice Test wicketkeeper who bats left-handed. Rahul played in the Australia Test series as an opener prior to the ODI series and bats as an opener in the domestic T20 tournament Indian Premier League (IPL) as well.