Several positives emerged as India took on England in their first warm-up match ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 in UAE. India ended up winning the match by seven wickets and with six balls in hand while chasing a target of 189. KL Rahul and Ishan Kishan starred with the bat and gave the team a strong start upfront.
While KL Rahul looked to be at his brilliant best carrying over the form from IPL 2021, it was Ishan Kishan’s innings that took many by surprise. Granted, the youngster was given several lives thanks to many dropped catches, but he made the most of it and dispatched the bowlers to every corner of the park. Kishan smacked 70 runs with the help of seven boundaries and three sixes before retiring hurt to the pavilion.
The Mumbai Indians batsman has been in spectacular form. Even in the last league game of IPL 2021, Kishan scored a blistering knock of 84 runs off just 32 deliveries at a phenomenal strike rate of 262.50. His form will make it hard for the team management to ignore him and VVS Laxman feels that they will find a way to accommodate him in the playing XI for the T20 World Cup.
“I think Rohit Sharma will get a chance and I don’t know how they are going to fit in Ishan Kishan. The kind of form he is showing, he is forcing the team management to accommodate him in the Playing XI. Also, I think Suryakumar Yadav coming in at No. 5 was a little surprising, because I thought Hardik Pandya could have been given a bit more time to spend in the middle,” Laxman said on Star Sports.
Rohit Sharma was an absentee in the opening warm-up fixture against England. VVS Laxman thinks he will be back in the side for the warm-up game against Australia and the legendary batter is also of the opinion that it’s important to give necessary game to all the players to make sure they are in the groove before the main tournament kicks off.
“Against Australia, probably just rotate the batsman who did not get an opportunity today and give everyone game time because that is what warm-up games are all about. You want all the batsmen to have a good hit and probably we can see Varun Chakravarthy get a game too. We did not see him today, did not see Ravindra Jadeja either. So probably those two bowlers will get a go on the next game against Australia,” Laxman added.
