Virat Kohli’s woeful form gives the selectors a headache in T20s
The emergence of young, fearless players making the former captain’s place uncertain
Virat Kohli’s place in India T20 squad is definitely under scanner after yet another failure in the second T20 against England at Edgbaston when the former Indian captain fell for just one off three balls.
Kohli had a very disappointing IPL, scoring 321 runs in 16 matches which had three first-ball ducks, at a very poor strike rate of 115. Morever, the new players like Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Shreyas Iyer all have been knocking the door with impactful performance and most importantly - playing the fearless brand of cricket which is currently the way the T20 is played by most of the teams as the game as evolved a lot in the last few years.
India were knocked off in the league stage of last year’s T20 World Cup where they lost their first two games to Pakistan and New Zealand. With KL Rahul expected to be back after his injury soon, it will be a tough call for the selectors to leave Kohli out - who at one time was India’s premier batsman in the shortest format with an average of 50-plus at a strike rate of 137.
Having lost his form in the last one year and with young players knocking the door, it would be a tough call for the selectors to make whether to pick their ace batsman who has a terrific record in Australia and one who can play well on bouncy Australian wickets and score 50 runs at a strike rate of 130 or pick a young in-form cricketer who can play fearless cricket and chip in with a 30 at a strike-rate of 180.
- Cricket enthusiast Anis Sajan is the Vice Chairman of Danube Group