Virat Kohli currently leads India in all formats of the game. Kohli is accustomed to being a captain, as he also led the U-19 team to World Cup glory in 2008. He picked up the reins of the Indian team after MS Dhoni slowly started stepping away from a legendary international career. Kohli was appointed as India’s T20I captain in 2017. MS Dhoni had just resigned from the captaincy role, and Virat was the next in line. The announcement came through when the team for England’s tour of India was announced in 2017. Today we will take a look at the playing XI when Kohli became India’s T20I captain for the first time.
Openers: Virat Kohli (c) and KL Rahul
Virat Kohli is undoubtedly one of the best batsmen in the world. He is the kind of player who drives comparisons with all-time greats of the game wherever he goes. Kohli opens in the T20s, as seen in the IPL. This instance was no different, as he opened the innings with KL Rahul. Kohli scored a handy 29 from 26 balls but got out while trying to accelerate the innings.
KL Rahul couldn’t really get going, as he lost his wicket for 8 runs from 9 balls. Rahul hit one boundary and got caught out by Rashid off Jordan’s bowling.
Middle Order: Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni, Manish Pandey
Suresh Raina is one of the best batsmen in India’s history. No matter how dire the situation, it seemed like Raina always came through for the team. He did the same in this match too, scoring 34 runs from just 23 balls. However, he couldn’t convert the momentum into a big score, as Ben Stokes got his wicket.
Yuvraj Singh came next and continued his poor form. Singh made 12 runs from 13 balls and holed out to Rashid off of Liam Plunkett. MS Dhoni came to the crease and did what he does best- score runs. Dhoni made a quickfire 36 from 27 balls. He remained not out and pushed India to 147. Manish Pandey also couldn’t provide him with any support, managing to make only 3 runs in 5 balls.
All-rounders: Hardik Pandya and Parvez Rasool
Hardik Pandya is still India’s main all-rounder but didn’t make any impact while batting. Pandya managed to make only 9 runs from 12 balls. Pandya proved to be equally ineffective in the bowling department too, as he gave away 12 runs from just 2 overs. He couldn’t take even a single wicket.
Rasool failed to grab his opportunity as an all-rounder, scoring only 5 runs from 6 balls in the batting department. While bowling, Rasool leaked away 32 runs from just 4 overs, with an economy of 8.00.
Bowlers: Jasprit Bumrah, Ashish Nehra, and Yuzvendra Chahal
Jasprit Bumrah is India’s premier fast bowler and is also Mumbai’s main bowler in the IPL. However, he proved to be just as ineffective as the other bowlers, giving away 26 runs and remaining wicketless. Ashish Nehra proved to be the costliest bowler for India in this match, leaking 31 runs from just 3 overs. Nehra gave away runs when India needed to bowl tight to defend a low target.
Yuzvendra Chahal took 2 wickets for India, and thus became the most successful bowler in the match for India. He bowled his quota of 4 overs and gave away just 27 runs. He maintained a low economy rating of 6.75 and proved to be difficult for the English batsmen to handle.
