Suryakumar Yadav produced a majestic hundred as he combined belligerence and audacity against England, albeit in a losing cause. India was denied a series sweep despite Suryakumar Yadav’s 117 runs from 55 balls with 14 fours and six sixes. His 48-ball hundred was an example of controlled aggression, which helped him reach the three-figure mark in just 16 balls from his fifty.
While the right-handed Suryakumar finished the Twenty20 assignment on a high, former skipper Virat Kohli extended his unruly run in world cricket. Kohli perished for just 11 after being caught by Jason Roy at extra cover.
Playing his first shorter format assignment since February, Kohli managed to score just 12 in two games. Amid growing calls for Kohli’s ouster from the Twenty20 squad, former India opener Virender Sehwag shot an ominous warning to the Indian team, asking for the inclusion of players who can fire from the word go.
“India has so many batsman who can get going from the start , some of them are unfortunately sitting out. Need to find a way to play the best available players in current form in T20 cricket. #IndvEng,” tweeted the batting icon.
Former India pacer Venkatesh Prasad also shared his views on the current scenario and said out-of-form players should be dropped for a “larger good”.
“There was a time when you were out of form, you would be dropped irrespective of reputation. Sourav, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaheer, Bhajji all have been dropped when not in form. They have went back to domestic cricket, scored runs and staged a comeback,” he wrote.
“The yardsticks seem to have changed drastically now, where there is rest for being out of form. This is no way for progress. There is so much talent in the country and cannot play on reputation. One of India’s greatest match-winner, Anil Kumble sat out on so many ocassions, need action’s for the larger good.”
Kohli, who has gone 77 innings without a hundred in any form of international cricket, is facing his worst batting slump, having scored a ton almost three years ago in 2019.
Former India skipper Kapil Dev said that if a bowler of spinner Ravichandran Ashwin’s calibre could be left out of the Test side, so could Virat Kohli. “If world No. 2 Test bowler Ashwin can be dropped from Test side then your No. 1 batter can also be dropped,” he told news agency.
India captain Rohit Sharma, however, backed the former skipper amid the hullabaloo. Rohit defended Kohli and said: “The T20Is that I’ve seen, especially when you’re chasing a squad like that and you come out and bat the way he did it, it shows the quality of a batsman.
“Honestly, we were three down and we wanted to dig in, get that partnership going and bat as long as possible. He pretty much did everything right today. Just slightly disappointed that it couldn’t be right till the end, but nothing taking away from that kind of knock.
“You don’t get to see that every now and then. So, we will take that with both hands as a team and I’m pretty sure about him as well. He’ll be very happy with how we responded to that situation where he went to bat in.”