T20 World Cup: Leave out Kohli at your own peril

Kohli is the man for the big occasion and has been scoring runs consistently across formats, says Harish Kotian.

The last time his place in the T20 Word Cup team came into question, Virat Kohli silenced all his doubters with a sensational match-winning knock against Pakistan in the 2022 T20 World Cup match in Melbourne.

Kohli's epic 82 not out off 53 balls is ranked as one of the best innings ever witnessed in a World Cup. He proved to be unstoppable in that T20 World Cup, finishing as the highest run-getter with 296 runs in six matches at an average of 98.

A year later, he also dominated in the 2023 World Cup, with 765 runs in 11 matches, including three centuries and six fifties at a strike rate of 90.

But the emergence of a fresh crop of young batting stars through the IPL has certainly put pressure on senior pros like Kohli and Rohit Sharma in the last couple of years.

In fact, Kohli has also responded to the challenge by looking to improve his strike rate in T20 cricket. Last year, he smashed 639 runs in IPL 2023 at a strike rate of 139 as against the strike rate of 115 and 119 in the previous two IPLs.

While he has traditionally played the anchor role in white ball cricket, in recent years he has also not been averse to go on the attack from the word go, especially in T20 cricket. He recently smashed 29 off 16 balls in the second T20I against Afghanistan in January, making it amply clear that he might be shifting to a completely new batting approach in the shortest format.

He also boasts of the most career runs in T20 Internationals, with 4037 in 117 matches at an unbelievable average of 51, while his strike rate is also quite impressive 138 -- a touch lower than Rohit Sharma, who has 3974 runs in 151 matches at a strike rate of 139.

While Rohit has been surprisingly confirmed as India's captain for the upcoming T20 World Cup in the USA and West Indies in June, Kohli's place in the T20 team has once again unfairly come under the scanner.

The selection committee led by Ajit Agarkar has sensibly made it clear that Kohli's selection for the World Cup will depend on how he fares in IPL 2024, but that holds true for every player in the running except a few regulars like Rohit, Suryakumar Yadav, Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Kuldeep Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah among others.

You will also feel for the selectors who will have to leave out a couple of batters among the likes of Kohli, Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, K L Rahul and Ishan Kishan for a few middle order slots. Even Rishabh Pant is in the race for the World Cup after he was ruled fit for IPL 2024, and then you also have the impressive Dhruv Jurel.

Kohli has not played a single match in the last two months -- his longest break in cricket -- as he missed the entire England Test series because of the birth of his son Akaay.

But Kohli is the man for the big occasion. He has never missed a World Cup match across formats since making his debut in 2011 and his record is simply the best in the world.

He is the leading score in T20 World Cups with 1141 runs at an average of 81, with 14 fifties, while in the 50-overs World Cup he has scored 1795 runs at an average of 59 with five centuries and 12 fifties -- second only to the great Sachin Tendulkar.

In fact, after Tendulkar no player except Kohli has caught the fans' imagination with his sheer ability with the bat. Kohli has been the only player who has managed to break quite a few of Tendulkar's records, which looked unachievable when he quit cricket.

At 35, Kohli is still at the peak of his fitness and has been scoring runs consistently across formats.

This year's T20 World Cup could be Kohli's last appearance for India in a World Cup and no doubt he would be keen to finish off on a high.