India clinched a comfortable 4-wicket victory over England. This match saw some of the seasoned performers come up and deliver. Thursday saw Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer as the top scorers for India, amassing 87 and 59 runs respectively, while captain Rohit Sharma was out of sorts yet again. The team also missed a workforce in Virat Kohli on the day because of an injury, while Yashasvi Jaiswal made his ODI debut. However, a rather shocking development took place after the conclusion of the match as Shreyas Iyer revealed that he wasn’t originally supposed to play the match.
In the post-match discussion with the broadcaster, Iyer said he wouldn’t have been in the playing XI had it not been for Virat Kohli’s knee injury that created space for him in the middle. The former middle-order batter, who is one of the more consistent in India, stunned many former players with this revelation.
Aakash Chopra, former Indian cricketer-turned-commentator, said he couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that captain Rohit and coach Gautam Gambhir had at first intended to leave Iyer out of the playing XI.
“I’m trying to wrap my head around what comes first. Iyer probably wasn’t even going to play if Kohli was fit. He is the first Indian to score more than 500 runs batting at No. 4 in World Cups 2023. How come you put him on the bench? And if he wasn’t going to be playing, which position was Kohli going to bat? Four? You weren’t making Gill bat at four either,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Team India will take on England on this coming Sunday it will be interesting to see the players that take on the field for the second ODI.
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