There has been a debate going on for several days about Virat Kohli opening with captain Rohit Sharma in the T20 World Cup 2024. Many cricket experts believe that this decision has cost Team India heavily and Virat should be sent back to number 3 as soon as possible.

However, captain Rohit Sharma and the Indian team management do not think so and stand by their decision. Now before the Super-8 match between India and Bangladesh in Antigua, the team's batting coach Vikram Rathod has given a statement on this matter. He has told the reason behind making Kohli open.

Why is Kohli opening?

Virat Kohli has played 31 matches in 6 editions of T20 World Cup. He has scored 1170 runs in it. Virat is the highest run scorer in this tournament not only in India but in the world, but he has scored all these runs while batting at number 3. This time, keeping in mind the interest of the team, he has been given a new challenge as an opener.

At present, he has not been able to live up to this challenge. He has been able to score only 29 runs in five innings. Before the match against Bangladesh in Antigua, batting coach Vikram Rathod has been questioned about Kohli's performance and changing his batting order. To this, he replied that the team is very happy with this.

Will @imVkohli stay at the top of the order?

batting coach #VikramRathour answers the burning question ahead of the against Bangladesh! #INDvBAN TODAY, 6 PM | #T20WorldCupOnStar pic.twitter.com/b59jaFiUcx

— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) June 22, 2024

Rathore revealed that Kohli has been challenged by sending him to open the innings. His opening has given the rest of the batsmen a chance to score runs. India's middle order is able to perform because of the current batting line-up. However, Rathore definitely said that he is not happy with Kohli's performance and wants him to score more runs.

Lara supported

West Indies' legendary batsman Brian Lara has supported the pair of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. He said that Bangladesh team will not prove to be much of a threat to India.

At the same time, Rohit and Virat will together make an opening partnership of 100 runs.