Former Indian cricketer and cricket expert, Aakash Chopra, made a bold statement on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s return to India’s T20I team after more than one year.
Rohit and Kohli marked their return to the T20 International arena for the upcoming three-match T20I series against Afghanistan, ending a hiatus since the T20 World Cup 2022.
Indian cricket stalwarts didn’t play any T20I series throughout 2023 but returned to the team for the Afghanistan series leading up to the T20 World Cup in 2024.
He said that had the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 taken place before June, the duo might not have secured a spot in the team.
The Indian management gave clear signs of moving on from the senior batters by naming Hardik Pandya as captain of the team. In Pandya's absence, Suryakumar Yadav led the Indian squad against Australia and in South Africa.
Aakash Chopra said on his YouTube channel: “It is not that they were unavailable everywhere, they must have been available at times, but the selectors said no because right now, we are going to look into a different direction. One of the reasons considered for the defeat of the World Cup 2022, the poor performance in the tournament, was that everyone else was playing very aggressively.”
Chopra further said, “Pakistan and everyone else played aggressively, we used to play defensively. 36 runs in six overs was our template for match after match. We said we will try to make 100 runs in 10 overs, but we didn't play that cricket.”
He concluded, “After this, the ODI World Cup happens, where Rohit was in explosive form. He was playing ODI cricket like it was the T20 format. Virat Kohli became the player of the tournament.”
The Afghanistan series begins from January 11 onwards.
