IND vs AFG: Indian star batter Virat Kohli is all set to return for the second T20 international match of the three-match T20i series against Afghanistan, and his return will also give a lot of selection headaches to Head Coach Rahul Dravid and the Indian management. He missed the first match due to personal reasons, as Dravid had confirmed in the press conference before the first T20i that Virat would be missing out and Yashasvi Jaiswal would be opening the innings with captain Rohit Sharma in the 1st T20 International at Mohali.
However, captain Rohit Sharma said that youngster Yashasvi Jaiswal will be missing the first game due to a sore right groin. As a result, Rohit opened the innings with his 2023 ODI World Cup opening partner Shubman Gill in the 1st T20 International, but the 36-year-old didn’t have a great comeback to T20I cricket as he would have liked as Rohit got run-out for a duck in the first game, which the Men in Blue went on to win by six wickets and took a 1-0 lead in the series.
With Virat all set to return to the playing 11 for the second game, former Men in Blue wicketkeeper batsman Parthiv Patel has backed the former RCB skipper to open the innings with Indian captain Rohit Sharma. Virat’s last T20 international game was against England in the 2022 T20 World Cup semi-finals, where the Men in Blue were humiliated by the Three Lions. “Virat Kohli has performed exceptionally well as an opener. Whenever he has played as an opener for the Indian team and RCB in the IPL, he has scored a lot of runs. Virat has the ability to set the tone of the innings, and if he gets the chance to face all 120 balls, he can get the opportunity to score big runs for the Indian team,” Parthiv Patel told Jio Cinema ahead of the 2nd T20 International game against Afghanistan in Indore.
Former Indian cricketer Saba Karim disagreed with the opinion of Parthiv Patel and instead suggested that Virat should continue batting at the number 3 position. “I want Virat to bat at his usual number 3 position considering that the 2024 T20 World Cup will be taking place in the West Indies and USA, as the Indian team will be playing on slow wickets in the Super 8 games, which will be played in the Caribbean Islands. You require someone who can control the entire innings, and I feel that skipper Rohit Sharma would be expecting Virat to play that role in the 2024 T20 World Cup.
India’s playing 11 for 2nd T20I against Afghanistan: predicted
Rohit Sharma (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shivam Dube, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, and Mukesh Kumar.
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