India National Cricket Team captain Rohit Sharma has revealed who between Ishan Kishan and Shubman Gill will open the innings alongside him in the upcoming three-match ODI series against the Sri Lanka National Cricket Team.
India recently defeated Sri Lanka by 2-1 in the three-match T20I series and now the teams are set to lock horns in a three-match ODI series. The 50-over assignments will be played on January 10, 12, and 15 in Guwahati, Kolkata and Trivandrum respectively.
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The 37-year-old left-handed opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan was dropped from the ODI squad for the series against Sri Lanka after his string of poor performances, which opened the door for Kishan and Gill.
At a pre-match press conference, Rohit Sharma revealed that Gill will be his opening partner and stated that it is only fair to give him a longer run at the top after his great showing with the bat.
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“Both openers have done really well. But looking at how both have gone through, I think it is fair that we give Gill a chance to have a fair run because in the last games, Gill got a lot of runs as well,” he said.
The 35-year-old further lavished praise on the wicketkeeper-batter Kishan. He said:
“I am not going to take anything from Ishan. He has been wonderful for us. He got a double hundred and I know what it takes to get a double hundred, it is a great achievement. But just to be honest and be fair to the guys who have done really well before that we need to give those guys enough chances as well.”
It is unfortunate that we won’t be able to play Ishan – Rohit Sharma
India National Cricket Team captain further admitted that Kishan will be unfortunate to miss out, but mentioned that he will remain in the scheme of things. Rohit elaborated:
“It is unfortunate that we won’t be able to play Ishan but looking at how things have panned out for us in the last 8-9 months, looking at how the ODIs have gone through for us, it is fair to give Gill that run and he has done extremely well in that position.
“We will definitely try out and keep Ishan in the mix and see how things pan out for us as we play lot of games ahead.”
In 2022, Gill opened for India in 12 ODIs and smashed 638 runs at an average of 70.88 and a strike rate of 102.57. Kishan, on the other hand, made his mark with a remarkable double-century in the third ODI of the series against Bangladesh last year.
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