India’s opening dilemma in T20s: Rohit, KL or Dhawan? Captain Kohli has an answer

India will take on England in a five-match T20 series starting tomorrow at Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi stadium. Team India come into the series high on morale having won the Test series 3-1. While fans and critics have been debating who should open for India, skipper Virat Kohli is clear about the team combination.

Kohli made it clear that Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul will start as openers in the series. “If Rohit plays, then it’s simple. KL (Rahul) and Rohit have been performing consistently at the top of the order for us and those two will start,” Kohli said making it clear that the seasoned Shikhar Dhawan will have to wait.

“In a situation, Rohit takes rest and KL has a niggle or something, Shikhi (Dhawan’s nickname in team) obviously comes in as the third opener but the starting composition, Rohit and Rahul will be the ones who will start.”

Kohli also gave insights into what the core combination could look like during the T20 World Cup in October.

Also read: India hunt for perfect XI ahead of T20 World Cup

When asked if R Ashwin, who was India’s star performer in the recently concluded Test series, would come back into the T20 scheme of things – this is what Kohli had to say, “Washington has been doing really well for us. So you cannot have two players of the same discipline, playing in one spot. So (this will not happen) unless Washy has a drastically horrible season and things go south for him.”

The 21-year-old Washington has an impressive economy rate of less than 7 per over (6.95) in 26 games for the country.