After a fruitful IPL season, Virat Kohli was expected to explode on T20 World Cup but he has been struggling with low scores in New York. However, former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar is not worried.
At this year’s IPL, Kohli won the ‘Orange Cap’, finishing as the tournament’s highest run-getter with 741 runs while opening for Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Hence, the Indian think-tank must have thought that it would be appropriate to use him as an opener one position down, next to skipper Rohit Sharma.
Yet the plan did not work. In the T20 World Cup though so far his record clearly shows 1, 4 and 0.
Due to Kohli’s poor form that has forced him out of India’s final group stage match versus. Canada at home with hopes of a resurgence from among his fans and tons of runs after he had made a couple of consecutive hundreds in 2018 (their first ever). They’ve already made it into Super 8s via three wins—over USA (17/09) Pakistan (15/09) and Ireland (13/09).
Gavaskar opined that there was no need for alarm since even if Kohli got three ducks in his next four matches he would still be one of the best batsmen around.
“Yeah,” said Gavaskar on Star Sports following India’s triumph over USA by seven wickets. “It’s early days yet in this competition. Super eights are coming up, semi-finals coming up and hopefully final also will be there. What is require from him is just patience and self-belief which I know he possesses.”
According to Gavaskar it does not mean anything when you have failed in three innings.
“When you have three failures it does not mean that you are batting badly. You sometimes get balls like that; otherwise some other day it would have gone wide or over the slips for a boundary. So there is nothing to worry about it. We have got to have faith in him…we believe that he would come good sooner than later,” said Gavaskar.
Virat Kohli should play his usual number three innings, believes former Indian batsman Mohammad Kaif.
“I think Virat Kohli should bat at number three. He has been opening in these seaming conditions where batting is not easy, unlike the flat pitches in the IPL. He scores so well and aggressively but maybe here he shouldn’t be aggressive. Maybe he just needs to bat for his wicket,” said Kaif.
India’s last encounter of the group stage will be against Canada on June 16th as they travel next to Florida.
