‘We'll be Opening with Rohit and Jaiswal’: Dravid on India’s ‘Best Chance to Succeed’ vs Afghanistan

India are gearing up to play the first T20I of a three-match series starting in Mohali on Thursday, 11th January. This will be India’s last T20I series before the T20 World Cup in June later this year. All eyes will be on the two stalwarts of Indian cricket, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, even though the latter will miss the first T20I of the series because of personal reasons.

There have been a lot of speculations around Virat opening the innings with skipper Rohit Sharma but head coach Rahul Dravid settled the dust during the pre-match press conference here in Mohali on the eve of the series decider.

“As of now we’ll certainly be opening with Rohit and Jaiswal,” Dravid told the media ahead of the first T20I match against Afghanistan.

“But when you have a squad and a team, you need to have the flexibility to do whatever’s required if that is in the best interest of the team and that gives us the best chance to succeed. So nothing is closed but certainly we are really happy with what Jaiswal has done as an opener for us and given us a left-right combination as well at the top,” he added.

Talking about the amount of T20 cricket India is playing before the T20 World Cup, Dravid said that the team will have to rely on whatever little matches that India has and also the IPL.

“There are not a lot of games after the One-Day World Cup for us in terms of the T20 format. This T20 World Cup is slightly different from that perspective. We have to rely on the cricket that we have and also on a little bit of the IPL. The boys will play T20 cricket here and the IPL but they might not get the opportunity to play together so we will just have to work around that. We just have to adapt and be flexible,” said Dravid.

Both Rohit and Virat are returning to format after more than a year. Both these players played their last T20I in the last T20 World Cup which was played in 2022.