There have been a lot of debates recently if India should continue with the same opening combination that they have gone to within the recent big T20 tournaments or if a change in the opening combination should be made for ICC T20 World Cup 2022 which is now less than two months away.
Currently, India’s captain Rohit Sharma and his deputy KL Rahul open the batting for India and both showed decent form with the bat in the Asia Cup 2022. While they managed to give the team a brisk start in the super 4 games against Pakistan, Rohit Sharma then scored a 40-ball 72 against Sri Lanka and KL Rahul also batted at a strike rate of over 150 in the game against Afghanistan.
India, however, has tried various other opening combinations as well in recent times. It was Rishabh Pant who opened the batting in the last two T20Is on the England tour and in the first game of that series, Ishan Kishan was the opening partner of Rohit Sharma.
India then moved on to Suryakumar Yadav as another opening experiment on the West Indies tour. That experiment seemed to pan out well, because Suryakumar, although he didn’t always score big while opening the batting, gave the team a fast start all the time.
Virat Kohli is likely to be the backup opener for India in T20 World Cup 2022
However, when KL Rahul and Virat Kohli returned to the Indian T20I side for the Asia Cup, the team management went back to the old opening combination of KL and Rohit, with Kohli batting at no. 3 and Suryakumar pushed back to no. 4. Later in the Asia Cup, when Rohit rested himself for the last game against Afghanistan, Virat Kohli opened the batting with KL, which suggested that Kohli might be the reserve opener for the T20 World Cup 2022.
Question – "should Virat Kohli continue to open the innings for India?".
AdvertisementKL Rahul – "then what do you want me to do? Sit out on the bench? (Laughs)".
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) September 9, 2022
As things stand right now, it is very likely that Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul will continue to be India’s opening combination in the T20 World Cup 2022 and if one of them is unavailable at any stage, Virat Kohli will be the backup opener.
