Flexible batting will surprise rivals, says Virat
DUBLIN: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.
“We are using these two games (in Ireland) to play everyone, and I have already told them that the guys who didn’t play will get an opportunity in the next game,” said Kohli.
The other squad members in line to play on Friday are Washington Sundar, Umesh Yadav and paceman Siddarth Kaul, the new face in the tour party after impressing for Hyderabad in IPL.
Malahide must have felt like home for India on Wednesday given they were playing in warm temperatures more commonly associated with Delhi rather than Dublin, while over half of the 9,000 crowd were supporting the tourists. There was a muted reception for Raina when he walked into bat, but uproar when Dhoni was next in.
Kohli too was also cheered to the wicket as he would be back home, although Ireland paceman Peter Chase dismissed both batsmen cheaply on his way to international best figures of 4 for 35.