India and England kick off a three-ODI series at Edgbaston later today, and the spotlight now shifts to Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma from Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. Their performance in these matches can have a huge bearing on their participation in the 50-overs World Cup next year in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Going by Virat Kohli’s explosive podcast during the IPL earlier this year, one can safely say that the senior players’ place in the team for the quadrennial event is not a foregone conclusion. With that in mind, going forward, every ODI series is important for both players because they can’t afford failure anymore. And since the series is in England, it’s all the more important that they score runs and the team wins. The pitches in Africa are more like those in England than those in India.
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India have three home ODI series in the current calendar against West Indies, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. They are not strong teams by any means. Plus, the Indians will be playing on belters with small boundaries to clear. Kohli and Rohit should not have any issues scoring against them, but at the same time, these performances won’t exactly boost their chances for the World Cup.
That’s why the two away series against England and New Zealand (five ODIs in November later this year) become very important for them. For, if they fail, the clamour for their ouster will grow, not just within the team management but also among fans.
That’s exactly what happened in Australia last year. When Virat Kohli registered back-to-back ducks, the calls for his head were never louder. And the fact that India, under new captain Shubman Gill, lost both those games and the series with them made things really bad for Kohli. Thankfully in the dead rubber, the third game of the series, he scored 70-odd runs and featured in a match-winning unbeaten big partnership with centurion Rohit to parry some of the criticism off. Thereafter, the duo played two ODI series in India against South Africa and New Zealand and Kohli particularly piled on the runs. They did very well in domestic cricket too. The criticisms turned to praise just like that. But then we will do well to remember that those performances were in home conditions that have the notoriety of being excessively friendly for batsmen in white-ball cricket.
Indian fans desperately need wins after T20Is horror
If there is any truth to those media reports in the last few months that Kohli and Rohit’s place in the World Cup is not guaranteed, the ODIs against England are a great chance for them to accentuate their credentials at an advanced stage of their career. However, that won’t be easy. The Indian T20I team recently lost the five-game series to England 4-0, with one game washed out. Prior to that, they had lost two matches to Ireland, a shocking result for the world champions.
Indians have historically struggled on these pitches, but at the same time, Kohli, who didn’t feature in three ODIs against Afghanistan last month at home due to an injury, and Rohit, who was rather average in those games, have a great opportunity to guide the team to a series win. And if they can do it, in light of the T20I team’s dismal show, their performances will gain much more traction. Their efforts are going to get magnified! But things can also go south for them if they fail. The next few days are quite important for them, make no mistake.