Flexible batting will surprise rivals: Virat

Kohli believes a flexible batting order will help keep India’s opponents guessing while they are in Ireland and England. India launched their tour with a 78-run thrashing of Ireland in the first T20 in Dublin on Wednesday.

Kohli was involved in two surprises — he came in at a relatively lowly number six and was promptly out for a second-ball duck. But by then India were well on the way to going 1-0 up in a twomatch series, with Rohit Sharma (97) and Shikhar Dhawan (74) sharing an opening stand of 160 in 16 overs. Suresh Raina was then sent in when Ireland eventually ended India’s second-highest opening T20 stand. MS Dhoni and Hardik Pandya came in at the fall of the next two wickets before Kohli decided to go in with just three balls remaining. After they leave Ireland, India have three T20 matches against England before they face them in both ODI and Test series. “The middle order is something we can experiment with in T20 games,” said Kohli. “I’ve got a good mindset of who’s batting where so in the next few games, not just the Ireland ones but also against England, we will look to be flexible and use them as and when the situation requires them,” the skipper added. “We will look to surprise the opposition and we’ve asked batsmen to have that flexibility and they have responded well.”

KL Rahul and Dinesh Karthik were the surprise omissions from the India team that played its first match in Ireland for 11 years, but they are set to get a chance when the teams return to Malahide for the second T20 on Friday.