The former skipper is having a great IPL season but how does he fit into India’s plans?
We have been down this road, roughly two years ago, when Rohit Sharma had unequivocally identified Virat Kohli as the third opener ahead of the T20 World Cup in Australia. But he never opened. Six matches in a row KL Rahul partnered Rohit Sharma, leading to a forgettable string of opening stands—7, 11, 23, 11, 27, 9 in a campaign that ended in a 10-wicket whipping at England’s hands in the semi-final.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s Virat Kohli runs after playing a shot during the Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 cricket match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Royal Challengers Bengaluru–(AFP)
History tends to repeat itself, but not if lessons are learnt well. Since that Adelaide debacle, Sharma has given his game a feisty makeover, while Yashasvi Jaiswal has emerged from the shadows with a strike rate of almost 162 opening the batting since 2023. Kohli at No 3, followed by Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja gives India batting depth till No 7, and apparently quite balanced too given the World Cup will be held on the makeshift pitches of the United States and slower tracks of the Caribbean.
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But first let’s take a look at their international strike rates in the order they have predominantly batted in the past. Yadav strikes at 175 at No 4, Pandya 148 at No 5, Pant 140 at No 6 and Jadeja 138 at No 7. Barring Yadav’s returns, these are no way impressive numbers at a time 200 plus totals are regularly being set and chased down. Which is why India could be seeking a middle-overs enforcer who can accelerate when the fielding restrictions are not in place.
Ideally, it still should in no way hinder chances of Kohli coming in at No 3. Nobody has scored more runs (1650 runs in 37 innings) in successful chases, nor at a greater average (86.84). If these numbers aren’t convincing enough, revisit that riveting chase against Pakistan in the 2022 T20 World Cup that wouldn’t have been possible without Kohli. But India won’t always chase. Kohli’s first innings strike rate of 139.36 may be a marginal improvement on his second innings strike rate of 136.96 but his average declines significantly (40.50 to 71.85), taking the sting out of most of his first-innings scores.
Case in point was Thursday’s innings against Sunrisers Hyderabad where Kohli went from 22 off 10 balls to 32 off 18 before finishing with 51 off 43. After reaching their first fifty in 26 balls, RCB’s next 100 came off 68 balls. The innings would have surely been built differently if RCB were chasing, but Kohli slowing down like that can only be attributed to the lack of a well-defined target. This is where Dube or Rinku Singh can come in handy. Both strike at around 160, can come at No 5 or 6, and take very few balls to lay into bowlers.
Yet, for either of them to play and Kohli to continue at No 3, India may have to sacrifice a bowling option. Pandya not bowling well yet deemed undroppable means India could be forced to go in with six bowlers—Bumrah, a second pacer, Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Jadeja. Pant keeping wickets leaves four spots for specialist batters, two of them openers. Only in the likelihood of Sharma and Kohli opening can Yadav come at No 3 and shape the innings, with Dube or Rinku as the enforcer around Pant and Pandya.
Jaiswal will definitely make the squad but not perhaps the eleven if India think on these lines. And that’s only because Kohli is still irreplaceable by virtue of his immense experience, especially during tricky chases. Take a step back and all these calculations start making sense in the backdrop of Kohli opening for RCB for more than two seasons now. This is the first time since 2016—where he had opened in all matches barring one—that Kohli’s IPL strike rate is north of 145.
Thursday’s innings, though comparatively slower, was an aberration in an otherwise impressive slew of scores in an IPL-topping run. But India need more assertion from Kohli—who has opened only nine times in T20Is so far—especially when they bat first because staying till the end can’t be a prerogative then. It’s this vein of batting Sourav Ganguly wants Kohli to hone.
“Virat has got the capability to hit a 40-ball 100,” said Ganguly during an interaction a few days back. “With the talent they have, India need to just go and hit. That should be the mindset. We will see what happens after 5-6 overs.”
That part is taken care of as well, now that Dube and Rinku are in the fray. Picking them should be a no-brainer, but accommodating either in the eleven is where India have to prove they are not averse to change, but before that they will have to answer the question that Kohli poses. That is where it all begins.
