IND vs WI | Hoping for Mayank Agarwal to do well if he gets a chance, says Vikram Rathour

Mayank Agarwal has had a fantastic 2019, especially in the longest format of the game, as he has cemented his place at the top of India's batting line-up. Having made his debut in the Boxing Day Test versus Australia last year, Agarwal has never looked back and has scored 872 runs in just 9 Tests which include two big double-centuries versus South Africa and Bangladesh.

With Shikhar Dhawan ruled out of the ODI series against the West Indies due to knee injury, Agarwal has been called up to the Indian ODI squad to fight for the opening spot alongside Rohit Sharma. Although KL Rahul is the front-runner for opening alongside Rohit Sharma, Agarwal's List A average of over 50 and his recent Test form has made a strong case for him to open the batting. Batting coach Vikram Rathour is hopeful that Agarwal will perform well whenever he gets his chance to represent the Indian team in ODIs.

"Mayank Agarwal, again, he has done so well in domestic cricket for many many years, got into the Test team and did really well," he noted. "One day cricket again his record at A level I think he is averaging more than 50, he got a good Vijay Hazare this year as well," Rathour told Cricbuzz.

"Looking at the overall picture, he has done well in this format as well, we are all happy to see him in the squad in this format as well. Let's see if he gets an opportunity and wherever he gets an opportunity, we are hoping he does well," he further added.

India has a reputation of being the best chasers in world cricket in the white-ball format but they've not been able to replicate the same form when it comes to setting a target. Rathour believes that it is the extra-cautious approach of the Indian batsmen that generally costs them runs that they fall short of posting which in the end becomes the difference between the two sides. He thus hopes that the batsmen will be more expressive from here on and will play a more aggressive brand of cricket, especially in the powerplays to help their team post big totals, something that they managed to do against West Indies in the last T20 at Wankhede Stadium.

"We are the number one team in the world while chasing targets, so that is one box we needed to tick off," he said.

"While batting first, you need a different kind of fearlessness, when you are chasing targets you know what to chase so we plan our gameplans better. Batting first, that is one area we need to work on. The way we batted in the last game, it was a big tick in the box so looking forward to maintaining that," Rathour concluded.