India will start their T20 World Cup 2024 campaign against Ireland on June 5 at the Nassau County Cricket International Stadium.
New York: Virat Kohli had his first net session in New York and batter for almost an hour ahead of India’s T20 World Cup 2024 opener against Ireland. Unlike the first two batches of Indian players, Kohli was the last member of the Indian team to reach the United States. Although he sat in the dugout during India’s warm-up tie against Bangladesh on June 1, the former India captain didn’t take the field and enjoyed the game from the sidelines.
As far as his first net session is concerned, Kohli batted the most in different wickets with the likes of Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah and Arshdeep Singh bowling a full throttle at him. Kohli, who has been in tremendous form for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL 2024, looked in good mood and also played a few banter with his teammates like Ravindra Jadeja and Arshdeep during the nets.
To add more to that, the stylish right-hander also had a brief chat with selected Indian journalists present at India’s training session. As far as India’s clash with Ireland is concerned, Kohli is likely to open the batting with Rohit Sharma with Rishabh Pant coming at No.3.
Clearly India hold the advantage on paper, because of their spinners who are way better compared to what the Irish team have though the pace attack, aside from Bumrah, looks a bit weak in absence of the redoubtable Mohammed Shami.
At the Cantiague Park nets on Monday, Pandya spent considerable time bowling to Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav and Rohit. If he can bowl at least three overs every day, the Indian team can also look to play Shivam Dube and include an extra spinner in the line-up.
Like earlier days, Ireland isn’t exactly a minnow in this format and very recently, they have beaten Pakistan in their own den in the run-up to the World Cup. Little has more than little experience of playing IPL for Gujarat Titans and the troika of Balbirnie, Stirling and Tector can more than chance their arms. The ‘Green Shirts’ will be the banana peel that Rohit and his men can ill-afford to slip on before they meet the more famous ‘Green Jerseys’ at the weekend.
