India captain Virat Kohli has made it clear that the team will go in with two specialist openers in the first Test against Sri Lanka starting on Wednesday (July 26) at Galle.
The opener’s slot has become an area of concern for Virat Kohli & Co. with injury issues occurring every now and then. India had tried four opening combination during the last home series due to injuries and are set to go in with yet another in the series-opener. Incumbent opener Murali Vijay pulled out of the tour after speaking to the selectors that he had not fully recovered from his wrist injury while his partner KL Rahul was ruled out of the first match due to viral fever.
Shikhar Dhawan, who was out of the Team since October last year, was recalled to replace Vijay and will open the innings with Abhinav Mukund. Both the players have failed in their last Tests and Mukund recently got out for a duck in the two-day practise tie. But despite that Kohli confirmed that the team would go in with two specialist openers and completely ruled out any possibility of trying out Rohit Sharma as an opener.
“No,no no Rohit has never opened in Test cricket and we don’t see that kind of experiment happening here. We have specialist openers in the team and they will obviously be starting this game. KL unfortunately is down with flu. Luckily it is not very serious so he just needs a few days to recover from that,” he said in his pre-match conference.
“KL is a very established player for us and he has done really well in the past couple of years for us in all formats. These kinds of scenarios present other players in the team with an opportunity to step up,” he added.