Former Indian batter Ajay Jadeja has said he wouldn’t pick under-fire Virat Kohli in India’s T20I side if he was the national selector. Kohli hasn’t been at his best in the recent past and his form has not been up to the mark. The talisman has failed to come up with consistent scores and he needs to turn the tables.
As the likes of Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, and Shreyas Iyer are grabbing their opportunities in the middle order, the pressure is mounting on Virat Kohli to deliver the goods. Kohli returned back to India’s playing in the second T20I against England but he was dismissed after scoring a solitary run.
Furthermore, Kohli didn’t have the best of IPL 2022 for Royal Challengers Bangalore as he scored only 341 runs in 16 matches at an average of 22.73 and a strike rate of 115.98.
Kohli is known to take his tim in the shortest format of the game but as India has adopted a new aggressive approach, it will be interesting to note how the right-hander will play, especially when he is under a bit of pressure.
Ajay Jadeja said on Sony Sports, “Virat Kohli is a choice that you have to make. Do you want to play that solidity at the top and then get runs right at the back? It’s that old-style when Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma will bat at the top and you would have players like Dhoni where they get 60 in the last four overs.”
Jadeja added: “It depends on who you want to play. I feel you have a choice, it’s a tough one to make. If I had to pick a T20 side, Virat probably wouldn’t be there.”
Meanwhile, India was known to be a bit circumspect in the T20I format but they have adopted a new aggressive batting approach in the T20Is against England. Jadeja added Rohit Sharma will have to make a call on how India needs to play.
“You have been shown that there is another way of playing the same game. You are still scoring around 180 to 200. It’s not that the game has changed, but you have a choice of how you want to play. I think Rohit Sharma will be making that call.”
India took an impregnable lead of 2-0 in the T20I series after beating England by 49 runs at Edgbaston, Birmingham on Saturday.
