Final chance for Kohli, Rohit to give India an ICC Trophy after 13 years

Its tough to find two cricketers who are so different from each other yet so closely intertwined by the same thread of fate as Virat Kohli and Rohit SharmaRohits initiation into topflight cricket came at the idyllic Belfast in 2007 and Kohlis a year later at the more conventional Dambulla Another intriguing chapter of this journey toegther will potentially come to an end next month in the stunning Caribbean Isles during the T20 World Cup 2024The next T20 World Cup is in 2026 to be jointly hosted by India and Sri Lanka but Rohit would be touching 40 then and Kohli would be 38 The 50over version is a further one year awayIts hard to see them playing in any of those considering the increasingly strikerate oriented nature of the gameSo both Rohit and Kohli will want to leave the stage with the winners medal around their neck next month Should they achieve that it would be their second each after the 2007 T20 World Cup Rohit and the 2011 50over showpiece KohliAnd it will be a perfect send off for two players who have had an immeasurable impact on Indias whiteball fortunes in the last 17 yearsHowever the KohliRohit story is not one of bromanceIts based more on mutual respect and the awareness that they should not step into each others spaceAlso ReadIPL 2024 final Despair for some delight for othersKohli has talked about the admiration he has had for Rohit since the very beginning of their careersI was filled with curiosity about a player People kept on saying This is one player who is rising rapidly I used to wonder that even though I am a young player no one talks about me then who is this playerBut when he Rohit stepped out to bat I was all quiet It was amazing to watch him play In fact I havent seen a player time the ball better than him Kohli had said in Breakfast With ChampionsContrasting in nature their batting has been high art for the masses to which they added a dash of modernity laterOf the two Kohli is the more allformat batter who has adapted more fluently with the changing face of the gameHe has scored in every corner of the cricketing world in a show of consistency that was rarely witnessed after the halcyon days of Sachin TendulkarWhile Rohit built his own edifices in whiteball formats the Mumbaiman remained a reluctant visitor in Test crickets elite corridors for the better part of his careerA move up to the openers role helped Rohit unshackle himself a bit in Tests in the later part of his careerBut for now Kohli and Rohit will have to lean on their vast experience in T20 cricket to fuel Indias run in the World CupRohit will certainly open and if his approach in last years World Cup and in the justconcluded IPL can be taken as a sign the skipper will continue his selfless aggressive approachHerein Rohit has an inherent advantage His natural bighitting abilities will help him pursue his batsmanship without many improvisationsThat onelegged pull of his is a cosy meeting point between elegance and malevolenceBut Kohlis game is slightly different He can pull off those occasional big hits a swatflick six or a flatbat smash over bowlers head A quick rewind to his pickup shot off Pakistan pacer Haris Rauf during the 2022 T20 World Cup will vouch for thatStill there is a sore pointKohli has often struggled to score off spin especially against the leftarm variety His career strikerate against slow bowlers hovers around mid120s in T20sSeveral times it has impeded his progress in the middle innings but during this years IPL he seemed to have found a solutionHe brought out the slogsweep against spinners and it had a healthy influence on his strikerate as Kohli made 260 runs from 188 balls and struck 15 sixes against themHis strikerate against spin touched 139 a marked improvement from his overall IPL strikerate of 124It was me mentally putting myself in that situation I did not practice that at all he explainedI know I can hit it because I have played that shot a lot in the past So I just felt like I needed to take a bit more risk Kohli said of his new approach against spinThis might come in handy for him in the T20 World Cup where the pitches are expected to become progressively slow increasingly bringing spinners into the gameBeyond the realm of cricket the two veterans final charge at an ICC trophy personally and for the team would be a captivating sightFor the fans the T20 World Cup 2024 would be about drinking it in as much as they can because once this duo leaves the stage there will be an immense emptinessWith agency inputs