Former India batter Ajay Jadeja was not happy with former captain Virat Kohli after another poor display, saying that he would not have selected the veteran given recent form in T20Is, and that the current skipper Rohit Sharma will need to take a call on his place in the team.
The comments were made ahead of the 2nd T20I against England, which India won by 49 runs. The side brought Kohli back into the line-up, leaving out the in-form Deepak Hooda. Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah, and Ravindra Jadeja were also recalled for the clash in Birmingham.
"You have been shown that there is another way of playing the same game. You are still scoring around 180 to 200. It's not that the game has changed, but you have a choice of how you want to play. I think Rohit Sharma will be making that call," Jadeja told Sony Sports.
"I think anyone who is leading the side has only two choices. That's the way I see it. Either you stick to the way you have been playing, give opportunities to youngsters or you go back to your old team that played before you started trying to give opportunities," he added.
The match saw India experiment with Pant alongside Rohit as the opener, but Kohli failed at No. 3 yet again, managing just one run in three deliveries after a 49-run opening stand. It was evident with the way the batters charged at the England attack from the word go that India have remodelled their T20I batting approach.
The ousting of Hooda, who has been in sublime form hitting a fifty and a hundred in Ireland last month, was a major talking point before the game. "Virat Kohli is a special player. If it wasn't Virat Kohli, he wouldn't have probably played Test cricket as well," Jadeja said.
"You look at the numbers and say 'oh, over the last 8, 10 matches, he hasn't scored a hundred'. But you don't leave him out just because he hasn't scored a hundred. You don't leave him out because of what he is done in the past. Virat Kohli is a choice that you have to make. Do you want to play that solidity at the top and then get runs right at the back? It's that old-style when Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma will bat at the top and you would have players like Dhoni where they get 60 in the last 4 overs.
"It depends on whom you want to play. I feel you have a choice, it's a tough one to make. If I had to pick a T20 side, Virat probably won't be there," he added.
Virat Kohli has been in a slump in form across all formats in recent years. The former captain scored just 31 runs across two innings in the Birmingham Test last week and also failed to get going in the T20I on Saturday.
