'Play Rohit Sharma at No.4': Hayden's startling swap for T20 World Cup, suggests new position for Virat Kohli

A sparkling 47-ball 92 against Punjab Kings on Thursday, which further added to Virat Kohli's fabulous runs in IPL 2024 sparked debates on whether the Royal Challengers Bengaluru batter, who opens for the franchise, should perform the same role for India in the impending T20 World Cup tournament. While the likes of former India captain Sourav Ganguly backed the idea, Australia batting legend Matthew Hayden was not in favour of Kohli as an opener despite his exploits in IPL 2024, but later took a sharp U-turn on his earlier comment with rather startling suggestion for head coach Rahul Dravid.

In response to the strike rate debate around Kohli last week, Hayden admitted that given the firepower present in the Indian lineup, the team does not need to alter the former India captain's usual batting position. And in conversation with his daughter and Star Sports presenter Grace Hayden on Friday, he reiterated the same, stressing in the importance of a right-left combination at the top of the order.

“No they shouldn't do that. The reason why I say that is because you definitely need a left-right combination at the top. So I would definitely go with Jaiswal and Rohit,” he said.

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However, Hayden quickly suggested that contrary to the combination of captain Rohit Sharma opening alongside left-handed Yashasvi Jaiswal, India would demote the former down the order and put Kohli in his stead in the lineup. In a bid to maintain the left-right combination, the former Australia batter suggested that Kohli could open with Jaiswal, while Suryakumar Yadav could take the No. 3 spot in the line-up followed by Rohit at No. 4.

"If you have to make a change in that combination, I would be very happy...if you would tell me if I could open with Kohli and Jaiswal, I would have said absolutely yes. Then I would slot Suryakumar Yadav at 3 and Rohit at No.4. And that top four, in my opinion, is the right combination. The reason I say that is Virat is a master of the first six. And once the power hitting comes into play, there are other great options including Rohit. Look at his figures at No. 4, they are superb. Those are better than his opening numbers,” Hayden added.

Out of his total appearance of 151 international matches for India in the T20 format, where Rohit has scored 3974 runs, he has batted outside the opening position in 27 innings, scoring 481 runs with five fifties. Eight of those innings came when he walked out at No. 4 for India, the last being in 2022, and smashed 188 runs at a strike rate of 122.87 with two fifties. In IPL, he batted at No. 4 in 91 innings, the last being in 2018, scoring 2565 runs at a strike rate of 130 with 20 fifties.