Should Virat Kohli continue to bat at the No.3 position, or should the experienced batsman open the innings with captain Rohit Sharma in T20Is? Former South African captain AB de Villiers has shared his thoughts on this hot topic ahead of the 3rd T20I against Afghanistan. In his first T20I since 2022, former India captain Kohli retained the No.3 batting position on Sunday.
After being unavailable for the first T20I against Afghanistan due to personal reasons, Kohli returned to the Indian playing XI for the series decider in Indore. Despite Rohit's early dismissal in the 2nd T20I, Kohli played a blistering knock of 29 runs off 16 balls against the Rashid Khan-less side. Kohli is expected to lead India's batting charge in the third and final T20I of the Afghanistan series on Wednesday.
The 3rd T20I will take place at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, the home ground of the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Discussing Kohli's batting position on YouTube, De Villiers expressed his belief that Kohli was the biggest threat to South Africa when he batted at No.3 during his playing career. De Villiers then went on to explain why Kohli should continue to be India's No.3 batsman in the limited-overs format.
"I have a different opinion. For the most part of my international career, Virat batting at No. 3 was the biggest threat for us when we played against India. I've always felt like he was the glue of the team in the middle-order. No. 3 is not quite middle-order, it is top-order. But he is so good that he often combined with the middle-order, even down to tailenders. It's just impossible to play against that," De Villiers said.
De Villiers highlighted that Kohli has an impressive track record of playing 79 matches as the No.3 batter. The former India captain achieved an outstanding average of 55 and a remarkable strike rate of 135. Additionally, the RCB legend pointed out that Kohli's average drops to 23 when he faces the first ball as an opener. However, Kohli's batting performance significantly improves when he doesn't face the first ball of the contest.
Excitingly, Kohli has the opportunity to break a monumental record in the upcoming 3rd T20I against Afghanistan. The batting icon is just six runs away from reaching the remarkable milestone of 12,000 runs in T20s.
"Even for Bangalore, when we played at RCB for so many years together, I always tried to convince him (Virat Kohli) not to open the batting. He loves that; I think that's his preference. He's played cricket for long enough and maybe he should have the final say. If he wants to open the batting, if I was the coach, I would say, 'Okay, you know what you're doing. Go open the batting; you're the best player, go win us the World Cup," De Villiers added.
