The rescheduled fifth Test between India and England will get underway from July 1 in Birmingham but there’s no clarity on whether Rohit Sharma will be available to captain the visitors in time having tested positive for covid-19 earlier this week. Rohit is in hotel isolation leaving a big question mark over who will captain India with injured KL Rahul also not available.
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Kohli had stepped down from the role earlier this year in January after the South Africa series with Rohit succeeding him into the role.
Should Rohit not be available, India might hand over the captaincy to either Jasprit Bumrah or wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant. Although it won’t be surprising if Kohli ends up leading them in the contest with India leading the series 2-1.
England allrounder Moeen Ali though feels that Kohli should be captain since he also led them during the series last year before it came to a premature end with the fifth and final Test in Manchester cancelled due to covid concerns.
“Because Virat was the captain earlier in the last series, I would give it (captaincy) to him for this one game,” Moeen was quoted as saying by India Today.
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He continued, “But it is obviously his call if he wants to take it or not. He is probably relaxed and happy, his mind is probably settled with not being the Test captain. He’s got the experience, and to be honest with you, this is a big series for India.”
Moeen also feels that England have the upperhand going into this one-off contest considering their recent form that saw them completing a 3-0 clean sweep of New Zealand in a three-Test series.
“If this series was finished last year, India would have won 3-1, but now, I feel the way England have played I think India might be slightly undercooked, due to the lack of cricket in England,” Moeen said.
“If England come out the way they have played in the last few games, England will be the favourites,” he added.
The 35-year-old allrounder also shed some light on his his recent announcement that he’s ‘officially unretired’ from Test cricket.
“Baz called and told me that, ‘look, this will suit your type of cricket etc’. So yeah,” Moeen said.
“In my opinion, Ben Stokes is showing that it is okay to get out playing shots and England do need a bit of that. There will be bad days, of course, but there were many bad days that were happening, there weren’t any good days anyway,” he added.
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