There are only six months left for the T20 World Cup 2024 and India are showing signs of moving away from their T20 blueprint of the last 14 months by bringing back Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in the team. It is also rumored that the injuries of Ruturaj Gaikwad and Suryakumar Yadav have opened the way for the return of Rohit and Kohli.
India made this mistake in the last T20 World Cup :-
The lesson India learned in the last consecutive T20 World Cup was that their top three players were very slow. They experienced this during the 2021 edition, but it was repeated in 2022. After this, India improved on this and since then with Gill, Ishan Kishan, Gaikwad, Jaiswal, India were showing fresh signs of progress.
How has Virat Kohli performed in T20 :-
Talking about Kohli, he has been performing brilliantly in the IPL and has not touched the 400-run mark in only three seasons. But when it comes to strike-rate, he has batted at strike-rates of 121.35, 119.46, 115.99 and 139.82 in the last four seasons. There is also doubt over how he will play the spinner between overs 7-16.
Over the years, opposition captains have used changes to slow down Kohli, and his strike-rate of 116.27 during that phase will not worry the opposition.
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How is Rohit Sharma’s performance in T20 :-
Now talking about Rohit Sharma, Rohit has not scored 400 runs in any season in IPL since 2013. He has scored 332, 381, 268, 332 runs in the last four seasons with a best strike-rate of 132.80. Such numbers do not strike fear in the opposition camps and beyond the powerplay, his strike-rate in the middle overs is only 121.89. Whereas against spinners it reduces to 113.36. It is understandable to hope that he will continue his aggressive form from the ODI World Cup in T20 as well, but it remains to be seen as the pressure of each format is different.
This will have to be corrected in the T20 World Cup :-
All these players are almost certain to secure their place for the T20 World Cup but India should pay attention to what they will be missing. If Gill is preferred over Jaiswal to pair with Rohit, it is not exactly an upgrade compared to the last T20 World Cup and he will also miss out on the left-right combo at the top.
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