Former Indian wicket-keeper bat Deep Dasgupta reckons the IPL performances of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli should not be used to pick them for the T20 World Cup. The experienced duo last played in the T20I format back in the semifinal of the T20 World Cup 2022 against England.
Since then the pair was not in India’s T20I plans but recently made a return to the format for the three-match T20I series against Afghanistan. While Virat Kohli will miss the opening game due to personal reasons, Rohit will lead the team at Mohali.
Meanwhile, Kohli has scored 4008 runs in 115 T20I matches at an average of 52.74 whereas Rohit has amassed 3853 runs in 148 matches at an average of 30.82.
With India set to play only three T20I matches against Afghanistan, before they play their opening T20 World Cup match against Ireland in June, it is expected that IPL performances will hold a lot of weightage for World Cup selection.
“It’s going to be important, but for someone like Virat and Rohit you can’t decide their future based on the IPL to a certain extent, and I am sure that Virat will score 500+ runs. He scores 500-600 runs, even if the season is too bad. It will be interesting to see Rohit this season because he is not leading Mumbai Indians, so it will be a different kind of role for Rohit,” Dasgupta said on Star Sports.
“I feel that in spite of all the discussions, the squad for WC is 90-95 percent final and the playing 11 is 99 percent final, because I don’t think that both will score runs in the IPL. Another important thing is captaincy because this format is captaincy-based. It’s almost fixed that Rohit will be leading as the captain in the World Cup because he is leading, which is supposed to be the last schedule of the series,” he added.
Meanwhile, the T20 World Cup 2024 will be jointly hosted by the USA and the West Indies. Dasgupta added that pitches in the Caribbean are not batting-friendly.
“Usually speaking, pitches in the West Indies are not batting friendly, I started off by saying that if we are expecting a 160-170 kind of game, so I think this is a better option because then you have the stability and experience of both these great guys. We have observed the change in the clarity and the approach after the 50 over World Cup,” said Dasgupta.
India will take on Afghanistan at Mohali on Thursday.
