Former Indian skipper Virat Kohli will not play first T20I match against Afghanistan on 11th January. This has been confirmed by indian coach Rahul Dravid at pre match conference on Wednesday. Virat Kohli will available for the next two matches. Rahul also said, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma will be opening the innings for India.
Both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have been named in India’s squad for the three-match T20I series. Rohit Sharma will captain the team in the series. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s last appearance in T20Is was in the T20 World Cup 2022, where India faced elimination in the semifinals against England. Since then, Hardik Pandya has taken charge of the T20I side. They did not played in the ongoing T20I series against Australia. Suryakumar Yadav captained the team. Rohit and Kohli were not in the T20I and ODI squad against South Africa also.
India will play Afghanistan in 3 T20Is on January 11, 14 and 17 at Mohali, Indore and Bengaluru respectively. Dravid said, “Ishan Kishan was not available for selection. He requested for a break in South Africa which we agreed to. He has not made himself available for selection and when he does, I am sure he’ll play domestic cricket and make himself available for selection. In Shreyas Iyer’s case, there is absolutely no disciplinary reason for his non-inclusion. It’s just that he missed out because there were a lot of batsmen in the team. He played the T20s in South Africa as well. It’s unfortunate. He’s a fine player but it’s not easy to fit everyone in the squad and the playing eleven. There were no disciplinary issues at all.”
On Rinku Singh Dravid said, “Rinku has started very well in international cricket. He is pretty adept in the role of a finisher, something that we want from him. The series against Afghanistan as well as the IPL are platforms for him to develop. When it comes to the selection for the World Cup, that’ll be done when it’s time. But obviously if a player gives good performances, he catches the eye of the selectors.”
“There’s been quite a few ICC events in the last few years and a lot of them were back to back. So there’s hasn’t been a lot of time in between these events so at various stages in the last couple of years that I have been here, we had to prioritise certain formats and certain tournaments simply because of the amount of cricket being played. It’s impossible for all the players to be playing all the time so we have always had to prioritise on what is important, especially for the guys playing all three formats. Even in this series, people like Bumrah, Jadeja and Siraj have missed out keeping in mind that there are 5 Test matches against England next. So you are always playing that juggling act a little bit over the last 2 years,” the Indian coach added.