Rishabh Pant To Open Against West Indies? Virat Kohli Answers

Team India will need a new opening pair for the upcoming T20I series against West Indies, starting on Friday (December 6) in Hyderabad. Regular opener Shikhar Dhawan is out of the series owing to an injury. Dhawan was initially part of the squad but was latter replaced by Sanju Samson after injuring his knee while playing for Delhi in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

Barring the opening slot, the team is unlikely to have too many changes. KL Rahul is expected to open alongside Rohit Sharma. While Rahul opens the batting in domestic cricket and IPL, he has been batting in the middle order for India. However, in the absence of Rohit or Dhawan, he has been promoted to open the innings.

In this year’s World Cup, Rahul had to open the innings after Dhawan was ruled out of the competition midway due to an injury. The right-handed batsman had fully justified the faith shown in him by the team-management. He scored two fifties and one century, helping India make it to the semifinal.

Rishabh Pant as opener?

A lot has been said about trying out Rishabh Pant as an opener. Not only the fans but some former cricketers too like Shane Warne have expressed their hopes of seeing Pant at the top of the batting order. The upcoming series would be a chance for India to see how the talented youngster fares as an opener. But going by Virat Kohli’s words, it is highly unlikely that Pant would be promoted to open the innings.

Speaking ahead of the first T20I, Virat Kohli made it clear that the team would not try put Pant as an opener. He made it clear that India have a sorted top-order and the team-management is not at all keen to tinker with it.

“Not really (on opening). In the Indian team if you look at the top-3/4 batsmen right now – and I had mentioned this about (Wriddhiman) Saha as well in Kolkata when I was asked about him playing shorter formats and I said that in IPL you have 8 teams and you have a lot more players who can play in a lot more positions,” Kohli said.

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