Aakash Chopra is bit puzzled. Why isn’t KL Rahul playing in the T20I series against Afghanistan? Especially since Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are back on the team.
India will play against Afghanistan in three T20Is. The first game starts in Mohali, Thursday, January 11. The squad for the series was chosen on Sunday: a 16-member team. Rohit is leading and Kohli has returned to the shortest format.
Chopra brought this up in a YouTube video. He questioned the decision to leave out Rahul:
“When you want to go back to your seniors, what is Rahul’s mistake? If you are making the team based on the last T20 World Cup performance, both Rohit and Rahul didn’t do well. Both are in the same boat.”
Aakash Chopra
The ex-India lead player also noted, KL Rahul did great in the 2023 ODI World Cup, much like Rohit. He could be a lower-order wicketkeeper-batter. He explained:
“After that, both have done well, if we see the last World Cup, the ODI one. Then both names should have been there. Rahul even keeps and bats down the order now. So you could have played him there as well. However, Rahul isn’t there but Rohit is. Virat Kohli is there. You weren’t looking to keep him for the last one year.”
Aakash Chopra
Rohit, Kohli, and Rahul weren’t part of India’s plans in the briefest format after the semi-final knockout in the 2022 T20 World Cup. Now, it seems Rohit and Kohli are back in the running for this year’s T20 World Cup. However, the Karnataka wicketkeeper-batter remains overlooked.
Aakash Chopra questions Sanju Samson’s sudden inclusion in India’s T20I squad
Aakash Chopra also expressed doubts over Sanju Samson’s impromptu selection for India’s Twenty20 team. He declared:
“Now Sanju Samson is there. For a long time, you weren’t selecting him in the important format for the year, but now suddenly, he has become a part of your scheme of things. Ishan Kishan isn’t there. He has given slightly patchy performances but that can be said about Shubman Gill also if you talk about T20Is.”
Aakash Chopra
The credible analyst went on to say that the fact that Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are back suggests that either Shubman Gill or Yashasvi Jaiswal, or maybe both, may not be included in India’s playing eleven moving ahead. He clarified:
“Going forward, only one of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill can open with Rohit Sharma. A school of thought could be to get Virat Kohli to open with Rohit because then only you will be able to play Suryakumar Yadav at No. 3, or else you won’t be able to do that.”
Aakash Chopra
Chopra stressed that if Rohit and Kohli take the open, the resources spent on Gill, Jaiswal, and Ruturaj Gaikwad would be rendered useless. He finished by expressing disappointment about the missing consistency and absence of clear decision-making in the selection of the team.