Former India cricketer and coach, Ravi Shastri is of the opinion that maverick batter Virat Kohli should opt out of the third and final ODI against New Zealand. Shastri explained that Kohli should play a couple of Ranji Trophy matches and prepare for the Border-Gavaskar series against Australia at home.
"I've always believed you play more first-class cricket, especially when you are going to play a lot in India. Just feel top players don't play enough first-class cricket. There's a lot of cricket around, you might not want to take the risk. But at times you've got to be smart and sacrifice certain games looking at the bigger picture. And the big picture is Australia," said Shastri on-air during the first ODI.
The cricketer-turned-pundit backed his opinion by citing legendary batter Sachin Tendulkar's example.
"25 years ago Sachin Tendulkar went to play in CCI against a Australian team and got a double hundred. Two months later in 1998 he had above 1000 runs against Australia in all formats. He got a terrific double hundred and Australia knew that they didn't get that man early the writing was on the wall," Shastri added.
The series between India and Australia kick off on February 09 in Nagpur and it is going to be a crucial home series for Rohit Sharma's men.
India needs to win three out of four Tests against Australia to solidify their place in the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023 final. They are currently placed second on the WTC table with a win percentage of 68.93 with eight wins from 14 Tests. Australia are on top with a 75.56 win percentage as they have 10 wins from 15 Tests and just one loss.
Border Gavaskar Trophy 2023 schedule
1st Test at Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium, Nagpur - February 9-13
2nd Test at Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi - February 17-21
3rd Test at Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, Dharamsala - March 1-5
4th Test at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad - March 0-13
India’s squad for first two Tests vs Australia: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul (vc), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav
