The Indian cricket team will be facing Ireland in their first match of the T20 World Cup 2024 on 5 June and after the warm-up match against Bangladesh, many feel that Virat Kohli will open with Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal may miss the chance to play in the match.
In the warm-up match against Bangladesh, Sanju Samson opened with Rohit Sharma as Virat Kohli arrived late in New York and Rishabh Pant was sent to bat at number 3.
The former Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan is not happy with the chances of Yashasvi Jaiswal getting dropped and he is also against Virat Kohli opening the innings with Rohit Sharma despite the fact that Virat Kohli opened for RCB and played superbly in the IPL 2024. Virat Kohli scored 741 runs in 15 matches and he won the Orange Cap as he was the highest run-getter of the tournament.
Irfan Pathan has requested Rahul Dravid not to drop Yashasvi Jaiswal because the Indian team doesn’t have many bowling options. He feels that Yashasvi Jaiswal who is a regular bowler in the nets should be a part of the playing eleven along with Shivam Dube.
Irfan Pathan said in a show that there can be two combinations; in the first combination, India can play with six bowlers including Axar Patel in order to strengthen the batting depth. The second combination about which Irfan talks about is to play with four front-line bowlers and ask Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dube to bowl. Irfan further said that another option is to include the young cricketer Yashasvi Jaiswal who is bowing in the nets but hasn’t bowled in matches. Pathan said that Shivam Dube also said that he has been constantly bowling in nets in order to prepare for bowling 1-2 overs in matches.
Irfan Pathan further says that if Hardik Pandya bowls 3-4 overs, India’s problem can be solved because other batters Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav make the Indian team a little handicapped. He said that if any of these batters had bowled, it would have been of great benefit to the team. Irfan Pathan said that we always talk about Australia but England also has a good number of all-rounders in their top-seven batters. The former Indian cricketer is of the opinion that it is always good to have more bowling options but in the current scenario, the Indian team is handicapped.
Do you agree with Irfan Pathan? Let us know your views in this regard.