Kevin Pietersen Believes IPL Performances Will Determine Star Batters T20 Future

Former England team captain Kevin Pietersen believes that star batters Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli still have a chance of being included in the tea India’s squad for the upcoming 2024 T20 World Cup. The topic was about the future of Kohli and Rohit who gained the most popularity in India’s loss match against Australia in the ODI World Cup final.

Both Rohit and Kohli were in excellent form in the ODI World Cup final match held in India. Pietersen said that their performances in the IPL 2024 will play a major role in determining their selection for the T20 World Cup scheduled for June 2024.

“They (Kohli and Rohit) have every chance, would have to see how they go in IPL, check them in the IPL. Because they have been so incredible servants to Indian cricket, you have to give them respect and you have to ask them according to form whether they fancy their chances or not. They are fabulous cricketers,” said Pietersen in an interview with news agency IANS.

On Sunday, all the franchises of IPL cumulatively retained their 173 players, Rohit and Kohli were retained by Mumbai Indians and RCB respectively. Pietersen said that as there is not much gap between IPL 2024 and T20 World Cup 2023, it might be a swan song for a couple of players.

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“IPL form is going to go a long way because the final of the IPL and T20 World Cup 2023 wouldn’t have much gap in between. Might be the swansong for a couple of them. Let’s wait and see, that kind of players who have dedicated their life to playing for India deserve the respect too,” Pietersen said on LLC.

He sees this as a valuable opportunity for retired cricketers to engage in competitive cricket and potentially embark on a second innings in their cricketing careers.

“It can be a second innings, more importantly, what we are seeing is competitive cricket and it is always the risk, knowing few guys out there are out of the game for a while. So sometimes you don’t live up to the expectations. But here the standards have been great, bowling and some fantastic catching,” he added.

As per the reports, Virat Kohli has told the BCCI that he will not be available in the white-ball series for a while. This decision effectively rules him out of the series of India’s upcoming tour of South Africa as well as the three-match T20I series against Afghanistan in January 2024.

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