Former BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has chosen batting legend Virat Kohli to open alongside India captain Rohit Sharma in the ICC T20 World Cup, which will be held in the United States and the West Indies from June 1 to 29.
Kohli enters the T20 World Cup after a sensational 2024 IPL season as the Royal Challengers Bengaluru opener.
In the recently finished Indian Premier competition, the 35-year-old, who played for Royal Challengers Bengaluru, won the Orange Cap for scoring the most runs in the 17th edition of the lucrative competition.
He scored 741 runs in 15 matches, averaging 61.75, including a century and five fifties. His top score was 113 not out, and his strike rate was 154.69, the highest it has ever been for Kohli in a single IPL season.
Virat and Rohit should open.
Ganguly believes that India’s premier batter, playing freely as he did in the second half of the IPL, will be critical for India in the T20 World Cup.
“I’d start with Virat and Rohit. I want Virat to bat like he did for RCB during the second half of the IPL. He has to play with freedom. He is an excellent player, but for India to succeed, Virat must bat freely, as he did in the IPL.
“So my choice would be Virat and Rohit at the top of the order,” Sourav Ganguly told Revsportz.
Rishabh Pant returned to professional cricket following a catastrophic automobile accident in December 2022, scoring 446 runs at an average of 40.54 and a strike rate of 155.40 in the IPL. Pant also had a joint-high 16 dismissals with the gloves in the most recent India Premier League (IPL) season.
The former captain also praised wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant’s ability to smash shots all over the place and showed confidence in the 26-year-old player’s performance in the T20 World Cup.
“He is an exceptional talent. His keeping is good, but his batting is exceptional. His unique selling point is he can pick some amazing angles in the ground. Not every player will be able to accomplish this, you see. And this is why Pant is so crucial to India. He has worked hard to make this return and is hungry to succeed. “I am confident he will make a significant difference,” he said.
The ICC T20 World Cup will occur in the West Indies and the United States from June 1 to 29.
India will be looking to break their ICC trophy drought, having last won the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013.