Rohit, who has led the Mumbai Indians to five IPL titles, will address the opening blues. The middle-lower order problem, and bowling strategies. And he’ll have a lot of happy headaches while trying to bolster the squad.
Just the different day, at the IPL mega auction, wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan struck gold by signing a Rs 15.25 crore contract with Rohit’s franchise Mumbai Indians.
Kishan is likely to get the nod, but KL Rahul’s absence allows India to revisit the Rohit-Kohli combination in the three-match series.
The opening combination would also be ideal to partner the skipper in the shortest format. With his regular KL Rahul out with a left hamstring strain would be the first order of business.
Ishant played the first match of the three-match ODI series against the Caribbean team in Ahmedabad. But the skipper also used Rishabh Pant and Shikhar Dhawan.
Then there’s Venkatesh Iyer, the KKR all-rounder who rose to prominence. As a big-hitting opener in the UAE leg of the previous IPL. Scoring 320 runs at an average of 40 and a strike rate 125. He was only slightly behind Gaikwad, who had more runs (407) during this period.
It’ll also be interesting to see if Virat Kohli comes out to open with Rohit to get some runs in as he’s been going through a dry spell. His most recent International century came here in November 2019 in the pink ball day/night Test against Bangladesh.
India’s team consists of Rohit Sharma (captain), Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper). Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Harshal Patel, Rutura