By- Mohit Singhal
Indian Cricket Board, BCCI has announced the squad for their West Indies tour for 5-match T20I with skipper Rohit Sharma coming back into the squad after missing out on the ODI series. The squad for the one-day series has already been announced and the experienced unit has been rested. Shikhar Dhawan will lead the team in a 50-over format.
However, a surprising call has been made by BCCI in the t20 team where Virat Kohli has been rested while Jasprit Bumrah and Yuzvendra Chahal were also given rest. But the thing here to watch out for is whether Virat Kohli was rested or was dropped owing to his constant bad patch.
Recently, many former cricketers and experts criticized the form of Kohli and BCCI too that why they are considering Virat when he is completely out of runs. Kapil Dev even said that he should be definitely dropped from the shortest format. Wasim Jaffer too said that Virat isn’t any more certain in the squad for T20 World Cup.
Now, as Kohli has been rested from the squad touring West Indies, the one question mark that arises is whether the veteran batter will be considered again for the 20-over format again. With the T-20 World Cup on the edge, it is out of the equation that the star batter is given rest in the crucial series.
Maybe, selectors have a concern about the hectic schedule ahead before T20 WC with India playing Asia Cup and an expected one-day and t20 series against Australia. But it still raises doubt over the trust BCCI has in Virat for the mega tournament.
Already there are the likes of Deepak Hooda, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, and Hardik Pandya who are going good at number 3 recently. So if any of these perform brilliant in the absence of Kohli, then it will be difficult to bring back Virat Kohli in the 11 and that won’t be fair too.
So, is this an end to Virat Kohli’s road in the shortest format of the game and from the team of World Cup where he has dominated the most with 2 times winning the player of the tournament in the T20 WC?
