Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra said that Yashasvi Jaiswal is virtually undroppable and he is ahead of Shubman Gill in the race for the openers’ positions in India’s 2024 T20 World Cup squad as well. However, Jaiswal smashed 72 runs at an amazing strike rate of 180.00 in two innings in the recently concluded T20I series between India and Afghanistan. Gill, on the other hand, scored 23 runs at a strike rate of 191.67 in the only game he played but he was also involved in a mix-up that led to Rohit Sharma’s run-out as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra said, “It’s clear that Yashasvi Jaiswal has run ahead of Shubman Gill. Yashasvi is ahead in the two-horse race, Gill is lagging slightly behind. Gill was played in the first match, dropped in the second, and wasn’t played in the third as well. Yashasvi was made to open in all three (last two) games. He was sent in the Super Over as well. The way Yashasvi is batting, it seems like he is not going anywhere. Considering what Yashasvi did in Indore and has done previously as well, he has become almost undroppable.”
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Aakash Chopra also added that Jaiswal will win the race if he plays similarly in the first few matches of IPL 2024 as well. He further added that Gill will have to do exceptionally well to get a place in India’s T20 World Cup squad. While opining that Virat Kohli is best suited to open in T20s, the veteran also feels India have decided to play him at No. 3 as well.
“Before this series, Parthiv Patel said and I added more voice to that opinion, and I still believe opening is the best place for Kohli in T20s. However, it seems like Kohli will be at No. 3 because the Indian team is not thinking (about getting him to open),” Aakash Chopra concluded. “They are also not thinking because Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav aren’t there at the moment. So they are not thinking about the number of left-handers and right-handers. We have Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rinku Singh and Shivam Dube – three left-handers.”
