“Virat Kohli won’t be there in my T20I side,”- Ajay Jadeja on Virat Kohli’s lean patch

“Virat Kohli won’t be there in my T20I side,”- Ajay Jadeja on Virat Kohli’s lean patch

Ajay Jadeja and Virat Kohli

Former India batter Ajay Jadeja said on Saturday that he would not include Virat Kohli in his T20 squad because opined that India have to make a call whether Virat fits in their playing aggressive T20 mindset.

Jadeja’s comments came in the lead-up to the second T20I against England which the visitor had won by 49 runs to lead the three-match series 2-0 and will be looking for a clean-sweep in the third T20I on Sunday.

India had included Virat Kohli while leaving out the in-form Deepak Hooda who had slammed a half-century in the T20I against Ireland. India was asked to bat first and with the help of Ravindra Jadeja‘s 46 runs, the visitor gave a target of 170 runs. Kohli yet again failed to score runs by getting dismissed cheaply after scoring one run.

“You have been shown that there is another way of playing the same game. You are still scoring around 180 to 200. It’s not that the game has changed, but you have a choice of how you want to play. I think Rohit Sharma will be making that call,” Jadeja told Sony Sports.

“I think anyone who is leading the side has only two choices. That’s the way I see it. Either you stick to the way you have been playing, give opportunities to youngsters or you go back to your old team that played before you started trying to give opportunities,” he added.

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“Virat Kohli is a special player”- Ajay Jadeja

Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli

Ajay Jadeja also elaborated that the management shouldn’t leave him out just because he hasn’t scored a century in previous matches. The management shouldn’t even leave him out because how he used to score runs in the past.

“Virat Kohli is a special player. If it wasn’t Virat Kohli, he wouldn’t have probably playing Test cricket as well,” Jadeja elaborated.

“You look at the numbers and say ‘oh, over the last 8, 10 matches, he hasn’t scored a hundred’. But you don’t leave him out just because he hasn’t scored a hundred. You don’t leave him out because of what he is done in the past.

“Virat Kohli is a choice that you have to make. Do you want to play that solidity at the top and then get runs right at the back? It’s that old-style when Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma will bat at the top and you would have players like Dhoni where they get 60 in the last 4 overs.

“It depends on whom you want to play. I feel you have a choice, it’s a tough one to make. If I had to pick a T20 side, Virat probably won’t be there,” he added.

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