14 months, yes, it took that long for the senior pros Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to return to the Indian T20 side as the duo was named in the 16-man squad for the Men in Blue ahead of the three-match series against Afghanistan. Kohli and Rohit haven't played a single T20I since the T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia and since Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav weren't available due to their respective both the seniors returned to the side for these three matches.
Ahead of the squad selection, former India opener Kris Srikkanth almost predicted the return of both batters and said that while Kohli would be a certainty, Rohit will be motivated to finish with a World Cup trophy in his hands, albeit in T20s, after the disappointing of losing the ODI World Cup final.
"Virat Kohli is a certainty. He is in great form. Rohit Sharma, maybe, is confident because of how he scored in the World Cup. He will regroup and try and do well in the IPL. If Rohit Sharma says I am available, you can't say you will drop him," Kris Srikkanth said on his YouTube channel.
"At the end of the day, Rohit Sharma is also hurt that he has lost a World Cup. He would like to go out with a World Cup in his hand at least. He was there in the 2007 World Cup. He would want to do something similar, win a World Cup, and go out," he added.
Rohit hasn't had a great time as a T20 batter for the last few years, apart from an innings here or there but Kohli was in the form of his life in the T20 World Cup 2022 becoming the leading run-scorer. Kohli has done well across a few T20 World Cups but is yet to get their hands on the trophy and Srikkanth mentioned that the trophy will be the single most important factor that the senior pro will be determined to get right this time.
"Virat Kohli would definitely want to win a T20 World Cup. Moreover, last year only the T20 World Cup took place, 13 months back. Virat Kohli was in extraordinary form.
"If they say they are available, I don't think you can drop them. If you want to give captaincy to Hardik, you can. But you have to also look at his (Hardik's) fitness," he further said.
India squad for Afghanistan T20Is: Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar
