Former Pakistan cricketer Salman Butt drummed up India’s extraordinary squad as they look to begin their T20 World Cup campaign with a blockbuster clash against Pakistan on October 24. India have a talented squad with plenty of depth at their disposal and this will cause the team management plenty of headache feels Butt.
India used its warm-up games well and even game time to out-of-form players to get some action. The men in blue have won both their warm-up fixtures against England and Australia and the real test will begin from Sunday.
“Now a good headache will start for India. Ishan Kishan is in form, Suryakumar Yadav is in form, Rishabh Pant finished the last match and Hardik Pandya has also been sent to finish matches and he has stayed unbeaten. Today, Rohit Sharma played and hit 60 off 41 and KL Rahul again played a beautiful knock of 39. So, the whole team is in form,” Salman Butt said on his Youtube channel after India’s victory over Australia.
Virat Kohli didn’t start the game against Australia and instead handed captaincy duties to Rohit Sharma. However, he did come on in the first innings and even bowled a couple of overs of medium pace. Kohli bowling is not a usual sight these days and cricket fans absorbed the moment during the warm-up game.
The T20 World Cup will also be the 32-year-old’s last assignment as captain of the T20I side. Ahead of the World Cup, Kohli hasn’t exactly been in good nick and has been starved of quality knocks. However, Salman Butt feels that Virat Kohli and even David Warner of Australia who struggled in the IPL, are big game players who will rise to the occasion when required.
“Virat Kohli is a big match player, he has scored runs all over the world. He is not in the best of form right now, but today he rested himself. Sometimes rest helps you regain form. When you take a break and come back fresh, you respond better going into a big match. So we will see that in the tournament. When the main matches come, these are big players. They say when the going gets tough, the tough get going.
And these two (Kohli and Warner) are tough. And they know the art of run-scoring. Someone’s form can be good or bad. But they are too good to be left out because they haven’t scored runs recently. And Kohli, in the IPL, has hit a couple of fifties. And he played well in the last two T20Is against England as well. That is a positive for India,” he concluded.
