Former India skipper Virat Kohli is going through a lean patch with the bat which has put him under the scanner. Several former cricketers and critics have advised the team management to drop Kohli from the T20I XI as they feel a young player like Deepak Hooda is a better-suited player for the current India set-up who is trying to play with a fearless approach.
The batting maverick was picked in India’s XI for the second T20I but he failed to score big and was dismissed on 1 by debutant Richard Gleeson. Poor outing at Edgbaston has once again put Kohli in a tight spot.
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However, veteran India leg-spinner Piyush Chawla said that Kohli kept his team ahead of himself in the 2nd T20I as he tried to embrace the attacking brand of cricket which Team India has adapted in this series.
“Speaking of Virat Kohli and his wicket, he played for the team and embraced their attacking brand of cricket. He saw that the ball was there to be hit and he went for it. Although he isn’t in the greatest of forms, what’s important to see is that he kept his team ahead of himself,” Chawla told ESPNcricinfo.
2021 T20 WC didn’t go as planned for India as overreliance on the top 3 were once again in the spotlight for their performances. In the last few months, the selectors gave chances to several players to shine whenever the senior placers were rested for the series. The rise of young players like Deepak Hooda, Shreyas Iyer and Suryakumar Yadav has put pressure on Kohli to retain his place in India’s T20I XI.
While Chawla believes that Kohli will adapt to India’s new style of play and said that it’s just a matter of time before he will return to his best.
“Virat Kohli is capable of adapting to the team’s needs. It is just a matter of one innings and one big score and we will be able to see the Kohli that we wanted to from the past 18 months,” he added.
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