Indian skipper Virat Kohli has cleared the air regarding India’s opening pair combination for the ODI series against England.
“As far as the opening combination is concerned, yeah, Shikhar and Rohit will definitely start; when it comes to one-day cricket I don’t think there’s any issues or doubts over Rohit or Shikhar opening together. They have been amazing for us for the past few years.”- said Virat.
The combination of Rohit and Dhawan is India’s third-best pair in ODIs, having scored 4878 runs in 109 innings at 44.87 with 16 centuries.
As an opening pair, they have scored 4802 runs in 107 innings which is the second most for an opening combination in ODI cricket for India after the tally of 6609 runs by Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar.
Vice-captain Rohit Sharma will be back in the ODI set-up after a gap of 14 months. His last game was in the home series against Australia in January 2020.
The series will be particularly important for Dhawan as failed to make an impact as an opener in the T20Is where he managed to get only one opportunity before being dropped.
However, Dhawan, featured in the three-match ODI series Down Under in November 2020 where he scored 120 runs at an average of 40.
Moreover, at 35, Dhawan is not getting any younger and has plenty of talented batsmen eyeing his place, including Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw and Devdutt Padikkal.
All the three ODI matches will be played in Pune.
