NEW DELHI: India head coach Gautam Gambhir's preference for all-rounders has once again come into focus, with fast bowler Harshit Rana revealing that the team management has encouraged him to sharpen his batting alongside his bowling.

Rana made a telling impact in India's four-wicket win in the first ODI against New Zealand in Vadodara on Sunday. He struck early with the ball to stall the visitors' momentum and later played a crucial hand with the bat, scoring 29 off 23 balls to help guide India home.

Rana was also promoted in the batting order ahead of an injured Washington Sundar, who has since been ruled out of the remaining two matches of the series due to a rib injury.

"The team management wants to groom me as an all-rounder and it is my task to keep working on it," Rana told reporters.

"I am working on it in the nets as well, and it was a matter of confidence which KL (Rahul) bhai helped me with when I went in (to bat). I kept my focus on it and made the runs," he added.

With frontline all-rounder Hardik Pandya unavailable for the ODI series, India opted to include both Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar in their playing XI for the series opener. The trend reflects a broader shift in team balance, with India increasingly favouring line-ups that feature multiple all-rounders across formats.

Pandya and Shivam Dube, for instance, featured in four matches each during India's five-match T20I series against South Africa last month. Similarly, the playing XIs in the two-Test series - which India lost 0–2 - included at least three all-rounders in both games, with Jadeja, Washington, Axar Patel and Nitish Kumar Reddy all part of the combinations.

Another injury setback for India: Washington Sundar ruled out of NZ ODIs with rib injury

Playing multiple all-rounders in the Test side following the crushing loss was criticised heavily by former Indian pacer and KSCA president Venkatesh Prasad, who had expressed that "the all-rounder obsession is absolute brain-fade".

The idea of having so many all-round players as possible can be gauged with the fact that specialist batters Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma and even Abhishek Sharma have rolled their arms over for India and they bowl in their domestic appearances as well.

In the build-up to the second ODI against South Africa last month, both Jaiswal and Tilak were seen putting in equal time in the nets to hone their skills as a batter and a bowler.

After he helped India win the Asia Cup T20, the world No 1 T20I bowler Varun Chakravarthy had told the media that the head coach has asked him to work on his batting skills, for bolstering his chances for selection in ODI team where he gets picked on as-per-need basis.

"My team wants me to bat at No 8 as an all-rounder and whatever time I can give to it in the nets, I focus on that. I believe I can score 30-40 runs for the team lower down the order whenever needed and that's what the team management believes that I can do as well," Rana added.

Rana put on 37 runs for the sixth wicket to stabilise India's innings in the chase with Rahul, after they lost Virat Kohli (93), Jadeja (4) and Shreyas Iyer (49) in quick succession.

"Till Virat bhai was there it felt that the match would end early, maybe with 5-6 overs to spare but a game of cricket can change anytime and you cannot predict it."

When asked if the Indian bowlers struggle to take wickets upfront with the new ball in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah, Rana retorted by saying the troika of Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna and he bowled well.

"I don't know what cricket you are watching, even today if we did not get the (early) wickets, Siraj bhai bowled really well. We did not give away a lot of runs either with the new ball," he said.

"But these things happen, if you do not get wickets early on then you will get them later, which is what we did. There are different phases in ODI cricket."

"I felt that the pitch was slow, there wasn't much bounce either," Rana added.

(With PTI Inputs)