New Delhi. The Indian squad for the Asia Cup has been announced. 17 players have been selected for the tournament and their camp is being held from August 24 in Bengaluru. Apart from the Asia Cup, the ODI World Cup is also scheduled to be played from October 5. In addition to Rohit Sharma, Team India has Shubman Gill and Ishan Kishan as openers. Considering the weak middle order in such a situation, many experts have said that Virat Kohli should be dropped at number-4 instead of number-3. Former Indian coach Ravi Shastri is also involved, but former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar was not happy with the idea and compared it to Sachin Tendulkar’s poor performance in the 2007 ODI World Cup.
Talking to Star Sports, Sanjay Manjrekar said that Virat Kohli has become the scapegoat. Remember what happened to Sachin Tendulkar in the 2007 World Cup. That said, the more you talk about other options like Ishan Kishan, the more Virat Kohli gets pushed back in the batting order. He has become a scapegoat in a way, because you want him to bat at number-4, he can solve all your problems. It is known that apart from Ravi Shastri, former Australian veteran player Tom Moody also appeared in favor of sending Kohli to number-4.
Virat Kohli should take the decision himself
Sanjay Manjrekar said that this has been an issue in Indian cricket before. In the 2007 World Cup, when the team management of captain Rahul Dravid and coach Greg Chappell sent Tendulkar at number-4 instead of opening, as they had Virender Sehwag and other players in the top order. But it became a big controversy. So it depends on Virat Kohli whether he wants to bat at number-4 or not. This seems like a simple solution. Shastri recently said that Kohli’s record is good even at number-4. Former cricketer Doda Ganesh also advocated Kohli to play only at number-3.
The team was eliminated from the group stage
As for the 2007 ODI World Cup, Team India’s performance was very poor and they were eliminated from the group stage. Sachin Tendulkar landed at number-4 in 2 matches. Meanwhile, Sachin was dismissed for 7 against Bangladesh and zero against Sri Lanka. Team India was defeated in both these matches. The team’s only win was against Bermuda. Sourav Ganguly, Robin Uthappa and Virender Sehwag entered the field as openers.
3 players are contenders
After the last ODI World Cup, Shreyas Iyer’s performance at number-4 has been good. But he is recovering from injury. In such a situation, they are being questioned. Apart from this, Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Verma are also in the team. However, during the announcement of the team, captain Rohit Sharma said that the number-3 player will be fielded in his place. Number-4 and number-5 keep going up and down. Talking about the group matches of Asia Cup, India will face Pakistan on September 2 and Nepal on September 4.
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Tags: Sanjay Manjrekar, Team India, Virat Kohli, World Cup 2023
First published: August 23, 2023, 07:32 IST