India has qualified from the group stages and will face Afghanistan in their first match of the Super 8.
The Indian team has made a sublime start to the T20 World Cup 2024 campaign as they aim to break a 13-year jinx and win an ICC title.
The Men in Blue won all the group-stage matches they played while the game against Canada got washed out due to poor weather.
While Rohit Sharma and Co has looked confident with their performances, one pressing concern has been the lack of runs for India’s premier batter Virat Kohli.
Kohli, for the tournament, has been promoted from his regular No.3 spot and made to open the innings alongside Rohit Sharma. However, Kohli hasn’t looked comfortable in his new position, returning with scores of 1,4 and 0 so far.
With Kohli opening the innings, head coach Rahul Dravid has pushed up dynamic wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant to the No.3 slot and it has worked wonders.
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Echoing on the same lines, former Indian cricketer turned pundit Sanjay Manjrekar opined that the lack of runs of Virat is not a concern if he can bail out the team in the big matches of the Super 8s stage as the former India skipper has the ability to play defining knocks in crucial fixtures.
At the same time, Manjrekar commended Dravid’s brain for promoting Pant up the order.
Speaking to PTI, Manjrekar said, “They (team management) want more and more impact players, at every position down the order and Rishabh Pant, I didn’t expect him to be batting at No. 3, and what a brilliant move it has turned out to be, starting from that warm-up game against Bangladesh, when Samson and Rohit Sharma took some time to get used to the surface.”
After qualifying from the group-stage with flying colours, India will next lock horns against Afghanistan in their first match of the Super 8 on Thursday (June 20).
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