Harbhajan Singh is confident Virat Kohli will play the T20 World Cup as he is hungry to lift an ICC silverware.
The internet cricket community went into a meltdown on Tuesday after a news publication reported that Virat Kohli may not be part of India’s T20 World Cup squad. As per it, Kohli might have to make way for younger blood as ‘slow wickets don’t suit him’, and the BCCI chairman of selectors is expected to talk to Virat to chalk out the road ahead for the former India captain.
Will Virat Kohli play the T20 World Cup? Harbhajan Singh says so(AFP)
Kohli, who hasn’t featured in a match for India since January – he scored a duck against Afghanistan in Bengaluru before pulling out of the Test series against England due to personal reasons – is set to return with the Royal Challengers Bangalore as they begin their IPL 2024 campaign against Chennai Super Kings in the season opener in less than 10 days. And Harbhajan Singh, Virat’s former India teammates, is confident his comeback will mark the beginning of a new era for ‘King Kohli’. The former India off-spinner feels Kohli will approach the IPL with the hope of playing the T20 World Cup and end his long wait of lifting an ICC silverware.
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“The IPL is coming and then there is the World Cup. Virat Kohli’s bat will make the same noise as before, probably louder. Of course, Virat has [unfinished business]. That World Cup trophy. He last won it when he was not Virat, but Cheeku. Won the World Cup in his first attempt but that’s the funny part about fortune. But from there, Kohli went on to become such a big player but without a World Cup – he played 2015, 2019 and now 2023 too. But still the trophy hasn’t come home, so he would be lamenting it,” Harbhajan said on his YouTube channel.
‘Can’t digest Virat not winning another World Cup’, says Harbhajan
It’s not as if Kohli hasn’t won a World Cup. In fact, he was just 22 and part of India’s victorious 2011 World Cup run. But here’s the clutch. 13 years ago, Kohli was still finding his feet in international cricket. With time, as he transformed into a world better and the best batter of the modern generation, an ICC Trophy, especially a World Cup has eluded him. He came perilously close four times – as captain in 2019 and as a player in 2015, 2016 and 2023, but couldn’t get the job done.
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Now, at 35, the World Cup in the USA and the West Indies could, in all probability, be the last of his career. He may or may not play the 2027 World Cup in South Africa, by when he will turn 39, and Harbhajan refuses to believe that Kohli will end his career without lifting at least one more World Cup.
“A player like Virat Kohli not winning a World Cup? I can’t digest it. No matter how many records he makes, how many runs he scores, as far as I know, his hunger will never diminish. And a major part of it is to lift that shiny trophy. Every player’s ultimate dream is to win a World Cup trophy. Your records remain for you until the end. But people don’t remember records; they remember trophies,” added Harbhajan, India’s fourth-highest wicket-taker in Tests.
