Former India player turned commentator Aakash Chopra has questioned Virat Kohli’s exclusion from the West Indies tour and said that he was unsure if he asked for a rest from the side or was told to sit out by the management. However, Kohli’s struggles in international cricket have made headlines and many critics raised questions about the decision to leave him out of the T20 series against the West Indies as well.
“When you picked the ODI team, you didn’t pick the T20I team. At that time, the biggest discussion point was that there is probably some concern regarding Virat’s injury. But when you didn’t have to put Virat Kohli’s name at all, even though he played the second ODI, either he has asked for rest, that’s another thing, you don’t know if he has asked for rest or has been asked to rest because of his injury or workload management,” said Aakash Chopra.
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He continued: “How much cricket has Virat Kohli played or missed after the T20 World Cup 2021, he hasn’t played a lot of cricket honestly. He was rested for the three-match T20I series versus New Zealand and first Test against New Zealand, and then he was injured for the second Test against South Africa. He was rested for the 3rd T20I versus West Indies, rested for the three-match series versus Sri Lanka before the IPL, he was not part of the South Africa T20Is as he had gone for the Test match, was injured for the first ODI against England and now he is missing the three-match ODI series and the five-match T20I series against West Indies.”
However, Aakash Chopra went on to say that he hopes this is the last break that Virat Kohli takes as he feels he needs to play more matches to get back his form as well.
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“It seems that he is missing a lot of cricket. It is not that he is in amazing form. This is an extended break, I hope this is the last one because you will get chances to score runs if you keep on playing. If you stop, the story gets stuck, there are difficulties for the wagon to again gather pace after that,” concluded Aakash Chopra.
