"The pressure keeps on mounting" - Shoaib Akhtar speaks about Bad form of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma
Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are two pillars for the Indian team across the format. It is very hard to imagine the Men in Blue side without these two superstars in any format of the game. But the fact is that both of them are going through a tough time at the moment.
Both these batters haven't had convincing numbers in 2022. Even though they struggled in the recently concluded edition of the Indian Premier League. They haven't performed as per the expectations in the TATA IPL 2022.
The former Indian skipper has gone through one of the worst seasons in his IPL career. Playing 16 matches this season, Virat Kohli scored 341 runs at a low average of 22.73 and a strike rate of 115.99. He had only two 50+ scores and didn't score anything in the two playoff games.
On the other hand, the Indian and MI skipper, Rohit Sharma, had even worse numbers this season. Notably, this was the only season in 15 years that he was not able to reach the 50-run mark. Rohit scored 268 runs in 14 innings at an average of 19.14, with a high score of 48.
The bad form for both the Indian modern-day greats is a big sign of worry for the Indian team. India will be competing in the Asia Cup and the T20 World Cup late this year. But former Pakistani speedster Shoaib Akhtar reckons that there will not be any kind of pressure on these two going into the World Cup.
During a discussion with Sportskeeda, Akhtar said that no one knows whether this season or this World Cup will be the last for these two, so there will be very little pressure for them to maintain their form. He pointed out that Sachin Tendulkar was consistently asked to score centuries in the latter part of his career.
Former Indian spinner, Harbhajan Singh also believed that these two batters willl look to win the second title for India after 15 years, even after having a bad IPL season. He said, "They will be hoping that they can lead the team to a win in the T20 World Cup. With the next generation coming up, it can’t be said for certain which players will get opportunities."