India captain Virat Kohli on Monday confirmed that he will bat at number three in the ICC T20 World Cup while KL Rahul will be seen to open alongside Rohit Sharma.
Kohli had earlier said that he would like to open the batting in T20 cricket and Indian fans were expecting a Virat Kohli-Rohit Sharma opening partnership at the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup. But the India captain it seems has decided to stick to his number three spot, given the kind of form KL Rahul has shown in the recently concluded UAE leg of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2021).
"Things were different before IPL, now it's difficult to look beyond KL Rahul at the top of the order. Rohit is a no-brainer. World-class player, he's been solid up front. I will be batting at 3. That's the only news I can give to start off," Kohli said.
Rahul emerged as the third-highest scorer in the IPL with 628 runs besides hitting the most number of sixes (30) in the tournament.
"We are pretty sorted in terms of how we are going to start in the first game. Outside of that we just want to give opportunity to guys in these games as much as possible. We will look to give game-time to most of them," he said.
India will start their campaign against arch-rivals Pakistan on October 24. Former India captain MS Dhoni has joined the India camp as mentor.
