During the T20 World Cup 2024, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were India’s openers throughout the tournament. After winning the T20 World Cup trophy, Rohit and Virat announced their retirement from the T20I cricket.
A week after defeating the South Africa in the T20 World Cup final, India is set to face Zimbabwe in T20I Series. This will be India’s first series post Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli era.
Team India will present some new faces with first time skipper- Shubman Gill taking the charge. Captain Gill has confirmed his opening partner.
India’s New Openers Post Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli
According to the reports, Shubman Gill will be having Abhishek Sharma as his opening partner. He also confirmed the No.3 player to bat.
“Abhishek Sharma will open with me and Ruturaj Gaikwad will bat at No.3,”
Abhishek Sharma will be making his debut in T20I with Zimbabwe tour. He was also part of the reserve team of T20 World Cup squad. Sharma however, had a commendable journey at IPL.
The Sunrisers Hyderabad opener scored 484 runs in 16 matches with a strike rate of 204.22. The prowess of this left-handed batter lies in his ability of delivering bigger shots in the powerplay.
India will also have Riyan Parag and Dhruv Jurel as the new debutants from Rajasthan Royals. Since most of the winning team members of T20 World Cup 2024 are given break after the title triumph, many new faces will have a chance to shine at the international level.
Shivam Dube, Yashavi Jaiswal and Sanju Samson (who were part of World Cup squad) will be replaced by Jitesh Sharma, Sai Sudharshan, and Harshit Rana.
The World Cup squad reserves, Rinku Singh and Khaleel Ahmed will be available to join the series.
Shubman Gill has served as a captain in the Indian Premier League and banks on that experience to lead the team.
Shubman Gill on taking Indian captaincy
Shubman Gill has lead the Gujrat Titans in the IPL 2024 and he believes his learnings from captaining the team will be helpful in his debut as captain in T20I Series,
“A lot of lessons. When I captain for the first time for my IPL team, I got to know a lot more things about myself and a lot more things about the leadership perspective. And I felt most of the challenges that you face as a captain are more mental.”
Virat Kohli on his retirement had said that its time for the next generation. Holding the same perspective, Gill talked about his team of young players,
“It’s quite a different team from the one that played in the World Cup. There are a lot of young players in the team, including myself. So I think in terms of that, we just want to give the players experience and how the international, what it is like to play at the international level because a lot of the players haven’t played that many matches and some of the players haven’t even made their debut. So I think that is our aim for the series, to give them more international exposure and experience.”
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The first match of the India vs Zimbabwe T20I Series will start today (June 6) at 4:30pm IST.
Tabinda Mir is a writer from Kashmir. She is an English Honours graduate and her interests primarily dwell in poetry and sports writing. She likes to cover Cricket as an avid fan. Apart from sports, her other publications include articles, poems and a letter to summer in the book titled, “Under The Summer Skies”.
Also, her leisure time activities include reading novels, poetry, non literary works, philosophies and writing poetry, short stories, articles on diverse themes.
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