Can Raina be India's Duminy?

Since the start of 2013, India have tried 10 batsmen at the No. 7 slot in the ODI line-up. Ravindra Jadeja has batted at No. 7 in 52 of the 78 ODIs in this period, while Stuart Binny has occupied the slot 10 times. Axar Patel has featured in just five matches in that role.

It was a role MS Dhoni used to say Jadeja was being groomed for, one which suited him over time. Jadeja is not the most correct batsman around, but his ability to play the big shots gave the other six batsmen some freedom to play with. Now, Dhoni doesn't have Jadeja, who has suffered a dip in his bowling form. No. 7 seems to be emerging as a clear problem area as the team tries to find balance between the needs and roles of its bowling attack and the amount of pressure the batting line-up can absorb in case India choose to play five specialist bowlers.

Dhoni's words are telling in this instance. Frequently in this series and the T20I series preceding it, Dhoni has brought up the side's need of a bowler who can bat whenever he has faced questions about Amit Mishra's exclusion. It came up again after India's 18-run loss to South Africa in Rajkot, except this time the side had shuffled its batting line-up in a chase that became tougher on a pitch that kept getting slower.

"As I said, I've explained it, we want Virat to bat at 3, but at some point we'd love to have a look at him at 4," Dhoni said. "Usually the No. 4 batsman will get to play 30 overs, and 30 overs is a good number of overs to score a hundred. It also adds depth to our batting, not to forget we are still looking for somebody at No. 7 who can play the big shot and if that doesn't happen, the extra pressure has to be absorbed by the top six batters. So you have to find people who fulfil that job. You also have to play with five bowlers because the part-timers find it slightly difficult to bowl full quota of 10 overs. So there are a lot of things that you have to manage and accordingly decide which person suits the position the best."

On Monday, when India's selectors met to pick the squad for the remaining two ODIs, they made only one change. S Aravind, who made his T20I debut in Dharamsala, replaced Umesh Yadav. Jadeja, meanwhile, was recalled to the Test side.

In December 2014, soon after Jadeja suffered a shoulder injury that ruled him out of the Australia series, Dhoni had spoken about the assurance Jadeja provided at No. 7. He is not available for the rest of this ODI series, which means India will go into these matches in the deficit, with one of their bigger combination questions still unresolved. Play a stronger batsman and the bowling side is weakened because of the lack of a part-timer who can relieve the frontline bowlers without letting the opposition run away too far. Play an extra bowler, and the top six are denied the cushion of a No. 7 to guide the innings at the finish or overcome a collapse.

Compare that to South Africa, who have batting allrounders at numbers six and seven in JP Duminy and Farhaan Behardien, followed by their four frontline bowlers. Between Duminy and Behardien, South Africa manage to clean up their fifth bowler quota without too much damage. Their frontliners too can usually be counted on to finish their quota of 10 overs, which cannot always be said about the Indian attack.

Duminy takes the lead here. In the 97 occasions he has bowled for South Africa in ODIs, Duminy has bowled five or more overs 47 times, consistently pitching in with seven to eight overs, with Behardien's military-medium making up the rest. That has added depth to an already robust batting line-up.

The last time India opted for a four-bowler, seven-batsman combination on a consistent basis they had Yuvraj Singh's left-arm spin available to make up a chunk of the fifth bowler's quota. In the current scenario, however, if India do play an extra batsman at No. 7, Suresh Raina is the closest they have to a Duminy-like option, which would mean he would have to shoulder extra bowling responsibilities.

Both Duminy and Raina have bowled in the same number of ODI innings - 97. The South African allrounder has pitched in with 449.3 overs, with growth in bowling duties over the last three years. In comparison, Raina has bowled 344.2 overs. Surprisingly over the last couple of years, his bowling duties have plateaued.

On the recent Bangladesh tour, for instance, Raina bowled in all three matches, unlike the frontline attack, and ended up bowling more overs than Dhawal Kulkarni, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav, at an economy rate of 4.95, second only to R Ashwin's in the series. Batting often at No 6, Raina finds himself in situations where he is required to find the big shots from the start and doesn't often face as many deliveries as the batsmen preceding him. Despite those factors, his recent slump in form - his scores in this series so far have been 3, 0, 0 - has been worrying because it puts more pressure on the No. 7, who Dhoni has admitted is not the strongest link. Bolstering the side with a strong lower-order batsman at No. 7, and getting Raina to take on more bowling responsibilities could be a way of alleviating this problem.

If India do persist with the bowler-who-can-bat option at No. 7 - and depending on their outlook towards Jadeja's place in the ODI side - they might have to look at options other than Axar. Punjab's Gurkeerat Singh presents one option in the current squad. He averages over 45 with the bat in List-A cricket and 31.10 with his offspin, with an economy rate of just under five.

A couple of years ago, the four-fielder cap outside the 30-yard circle in the non-Powerplay overs forced teams to field five bowlers. The new rule changes which came into effect this June - five boundary fielders are now permitted in the last 10 overs - have somewhat restored parity for the bowlers, but made it harder for the No. 7 batsman. India need to find a way to cope.