By: Mohit Singhal
With a race to the T20 World Cup team going down to the wire, there are pretty much assumptions that Virat Kohli isn’t certain in the squad amid the prolonged batting failure from the run machine. He has been in ordinary form for the past couple of years with the last century coming in the Pink-ball test in November 2019.
With selectors and fans running out of patience, it is believed that Virat can be dropped from the world cup squad owing to continuous failures and youngsters stepping up on the biggest stage. The latest entrant to this race is Deepak Hooda who proved his mettle with an astonishing hundred against Ireland and an intentful knock against England in the first T20I.
Virat Kohli is fighting against his bad luck and lean patch for the past 2 years but nothing is going right for him. The former Indian skipper had a dreadful IPL season with just 2 half-centuries in the 15 matches and his current test run is nothing but a thing to forget.
He is running out of time with several youngsters coming up and showing their abilities of how they can take the Indian team ahead after Kohli. Numerous players like Deepak Hooda, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson and Dinesh Karthik had done well in India colors and are well in line for the mega event squad.
The Rohit Sharma-led Indian team will take on the world in the shortest format of the game this October in Australia.
When asked Kapil Dev on this take, he said “absolutely yes, Kohli can be dropped from the T20I squad. He said, if a bowler like Ravichandran Ashwin can be dropped from the Test squad (before and recently too), then why not Virat Kohli.
Ashwin is the no. 2 bowler in test cricket, still, he was benched for the whole England series, this means that the former number 1 T20 batter can also be dropped.
He said, Virat has earned his name with his performance over the years but one can’t sustain for a long just with his reputation, one should perform otherwise you don’t deserve the place in the team.
There are youngsters who are performing and proving their worth, hence you can’t overlook their act. The fact is Virat needs to perform for his place otherwise the deserving ones should get a nod.”
However, Virat’s performance in recent T20s for India contrasts the statement and the thinking of the BCCI officials. He has performed pretty well in the past 12 matches for India in the shortest format of the game. In these number of matches, he has amassed 493 runs at a remarkable average of 61.52 with 6 fifties in it.
He has always performed under pressure and has the potential to do so furthermore too. In the T20 world cup match against Pakistan in 2021, he fought alone and scored 57 runs.
Adding to it, one more case goes in the favour of him. His experience and overall run-in world cups are something which isn’t negligible.
In a high-pressure match, he can come out as a savior by anchoring the innings well while other players are impatient and it can prove costly.
So, it will come down to the England series which will somehow decide the fate of Virat Kohli in the Indian T20 squad.
