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India’s dominant run against England in the T20I series came to an end in the third game as they fell short by 17 runs. But throughout this tour, former India captain Virat Kohli has failed to find any form as he has only scored 12 runs in the two games he played. These performances garnered a lot of criticism even from World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev.
But the current Indian captain Rohit Sharma has defended Kohli and his selection in the team. Sharma also addressed how Dev is an outsider in this situation and isn’t aware of what’s happening inside. While speaking during the post-match press conference, Rohit Sharma said, “He is watching the game from outside and does not know what is happening inside.
“We have our thought process. We build our team and behind this, there is a lot of thinking. We back the boys and give them opportunities. So, these things you do not get to know from outside. So, whatever is happening outside is not important but what is happening inside is more important for us,” said the skipper added.
We should not overlook his past performances: Sharma
“If you talk about form then everyone goes through ups and downs. The Player’s quality does not get affected. So, we should keep these things in our minds. When a player is doing well for so many years, then one or two bad series does not make him a bad player.
We should not overlook his past performances. We who are in the team know the importance of the player. They have got all the right to talk about it but it does not matter for us too much,” Rohit Sharma continued.
What did Kapil Dev say?
Dev had commented that if a bowler with spinner Ravichandran Ashwin’s ability and skill could be left out of the Test side, and so could Virat Kohli. Dev had said, “If he (Virat) is not performing, you cannot continue to keep these boys (youngsters like Deepak Hooda) out.
“I hope there is a healthy fight for selection, the youngsters should look to outperform Kohli. But Kohli needs to think, ‘Yes at one point I was a big player, but I need to play like that No. 1 player again’. That is a problem for the team, it is not a bad problem,” Kapil Dev added.