Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar has made a huge statement regarding ace India batter Virat Kohli ahead of the T20 World Cup 2024. The ICC event will be hosted jointly by the West Indies and the USA.
The tournament will begin on June 1 and will run till June 29. India has been placed in Group A with Pakistan, the USA, Canada, and Ireland. India will begin their tournament on June 5 against Ireland and clash with Pakistan on June 9. India will play three of its group matches in New York and one in Florida.
Sanjay Manjrekar believes that Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma won’t repeat the mistakes of the T20 World Cup 2022 when they only managed to score 168 runs against England due to the slow batting by the top-order batters.
"In the last T20 World Cup two years ago, in the semis against England in Adelaide, India batted first and got only 168 runs in 20 overs, and a shocking 62 in the first 10. The bulk of deliveries in this crucial period were faced by the seniors, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Rohit got 27 off 28 balls at a strike rate of 96, while Virat secured 50 off 40 balls at a strike rate of 125, eventually getting out in the 18th over," Sanjay Manjrekar wrote in Hindustan Times.
"India had lost the tournament right there. Thanks to Hardik Pandya's 63 off 33 balls, at a strike rate of 190, India had something to show on the board. England, unsurprisingly, chased the target in 16 overs with 10 wickets in hand," Manjrekar recounted from the T20 World Cup 2022.
India bounced back in ICC World Cup 2023, when Rohit Sharma impressed everyone with his aggressive brand of batting and Kohli finished as the highest run-getter in the tournament. Even in the IPL 2024, Kohli finished with the most runs, while Rohit Sharma also scored a century.
"Having said this, we can be sure of one thing. Rohit and Virat will not commit the same mistakes made in that semis. It's worth acknowledging that Virat is not the same T20 player he was two years ago. He must know deep down, surely, that the ‘outside noise' has made him a better T20 batter today than he was two years ago.
Is there still a lingering risk attached to Virat – that when it comes to the big stage, the knockout games, he is preoccupied with batting longer rather than batting quicker? For Indian cricket's sake, let's hope this preoccupation is buried deep," the former batter concluded.
