There was a lot of talk about Virat-Shastri jugalbandi. During this time, Virat also paid a lot of attention to his game and took many big decisions during his aggressive captaincy. Shastri also never expressed any objection to any decision of Virat.
During their tenure, India won 11-11 Tests both at home and away. The historic win of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia and reaching the final of the World Test Championship were his biggest achievements. Even 67.42 percent success in ODI is enough to show the achievement of these two. That means, as long as we were winning, everything was fine. In Shastri’s eyes, Virat was the rarest diamond of Indian cricket. But now he has taken a U-turn regarding his participation in the T20 World Cup. When Virat was winning the match for RCB against Punjab Kings by playing an inning of 77 runs in 49 balls, the atmosphere in the commentary box was also quite heated.
At that time, former England captain Kevin Pietersen was seen supporting Virat by saying that in view of the global growth of the game, players like Virat Kohli should be in the team in the T20 World Cup to be held in America and West
Indies in June. After the match, Virat also said that when his name is used for T20 World Cup promotion, then he is also completely ready for this format. But Ravi Shastri rejected these facts of Virat and Pietersen by saying that winning is more important than the development of the game.
Shastri said that India should go with a young team to win the T20 World Cup. For this he gave the example of 2007 T-20 World Cup.
Perhaps Shastri forgot that even today Virat is the biggest chase master in the shortest format. He knows how to stay at the crease and also knows how to play in a explosive manner. What’s more, he has a very good understanding of the game. In this match, he saw that Rabada and Harpreet Brar were bowling brilliantly, so he focused on rotating the strike in front of them. His opponent Shikhar Dhawan was seen lagging behind in this work.
Secondly, Virat is a big match player. Who can forget the match against Pakistan in Melbourne in 2022. While chasing runs, he hit three fours on Pakistan’s main strike bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi in the 18th over.
In the next over, he hit two sixes on Haris Rauf and in the last over, he made the biggest contribution to the team’s victory by hitting a six on Mohammad Nawaz.
Earlier, in the match against South Africa, he also made a big contribution in the victory with his innings of 49 runs at a strike rate of 175. His innings of 122 runs on 61 balls against Afghanistan also cannot be forgotten.
Despite the biggest innings for Team India against Pakistan in the 2021 T20 World Cup, he could not win the match but he left no stone unturned.
Shastri is right in saying that there should be youth in the team. Yashasvi is the strength of the team but it is also true that Virat will have to face tough competition with Gill in the playing eleven. Gill’s strike rate has improved but he does not have many runs in this format. A power hitter like Rinku Singh may get the playing eleven only when needed. If Shastri had talked about coordination between the youth and some senior players, it would have been more practical.
The young team also means that Rohit Sharma, who has turned 36, should be
dropped from the team, but this argument is not practical at all. He
gave the example of 2007 T-20 World Cup. Senior players like Sehwag,
Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Harbhajan, Yusuf Pathan and Yuvraj Singh were
also present in that team. Has Shastri received any indication from
the board, according to which he has made changes in his thinking?