Virat Kohli likely to open the innings for India in the T20 World Cup: Saba Karim

The T20 World Cup is on cards and the cricketing fraternity is already raring for the mega event. The experts and on-lookers have been coming up with their predictions on the team balance and other aspects of the game as well. However, the latest to join the list is former India cricketer Saba Karim. In T20 cricket, it becomes pivotal that the most impactful players face the maximum balls.

Talking about Indian skipper Virat Kohli, he has been instrumental for team India across formats. He opened the innings alongside Rohit Sharma in the fifth T20I against England. Earlier, he had also expressed the desire of taking up the opener’s role in the shortest format. Karim feels that as the right-handed batter is batting with a good strike rate up the order in the IPL, there are strong chances that he might open for India in the T20 World Cup.

“There now seems to be a strong chance of Virat Kohli opening the innings for India in the T20 World Cup because he is taking a liking to that position. He is batting with a good strike rate. He has a concept of which shots to play and the kind of risks he has to take, so it’s all about applying that,” Saba Karim said on the Khelneeti podcast.

Everyone will just be waiting to see when Virat Kohli can convert these starts into big scores: Saba Karim

RCB had a splendid run in the first half of the tournament but struggled in the first two matches of the UAE leg. The team however bounced back stronger against the five-time champions MI to emerge triumphantly. The RCB skipper was impressive with the bat as he put up some dominating shows to the fore. Kohli registered two consecutive half-centuries and Karim thus feels that the fans will be now looking forward to witnessing big innings from him.

“Now everyone will just be waiting to see when he (Kohli) can convert these starts into big scores. If you’re an opener and your strike rate is good at the start, you’re expected to go on and convert that start into a big score,” Karim added