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 Twenty20 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 Twenty20 matches against England before they face them in both one-day international 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 the batsmen to have that flexibility and they have responded very 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 Twenty20 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.
DUBLIN:Virat
India became the fifth team to win the 100th T20 match, beating Ireland by 76 runs on Wednesday. Pakistan, SA, England and Australia are the other teams. Sri Lanka and New Zealand lost their 100th match.
India's 76-run win was their fourth biggest in terms of runs in T20s. It was Ireland's second biggest loss in terms of runs after the 83-run loss by New Zealand at Nottingham on June 11, 2009. Vs Sri Lanka in Cuttack, 2017 Vs England Colombo, 2012 Vs Sri Lanka Indore, 2017 Vs Ireland Dublin, 2018
75
Vs England Bengaluru, 2017
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 four for 35.
James Shannon provided the only Irish resistance with the bat, hitting 60 from 35 balls.
But he was the second of manof-the-match Kuldeep Yadav’s four wickets and, with fellow India spinner Yuzvendra Chahal taking three, Ireland were held to a total of 132 for nine in 20 overs.
Ireland T20 captan Gary Wilson, while “obviously disappointed”, insisted: “We’ve obviously been beaten by 70-odd runs, a big margin in Twenty20 cricket.
“But if we can negate their spin in Kuldeep and Chahal, that would stand us in good stead.”