Virat Kohli exudes confidence in KL Rahul, confirms he'll open for India with Rohit Sharma

Team India's skipper Virat Kohli called opener KL Rahul a 'champion' player and backed him to continue playing for the Men in Blue despite a string of poor scores in the ongoing T20 series against England. KL Rahul was dismissed for a duck once again on Tuesday after a fiery Mark Wood's tracer bullet of a delivery uprooted the middle stump after beating the opener. Even as India collapsed to an 8-wicket-loss against England at Ahmedabad, skipper Virat Kohli exuded confidence in Rahul to do well for the side and confirmed that he will not be snubbed despite a poor string of scores. 

Virat Kohli backs KL Rahul to continue for India

Speaking at the post-match presentation, Virat Kohli noted that KL Rahul's statistics over the last three years indicated that he was better than his teammates in the T20 format. Kohli revealed that he had gone through a lean patch himself during the last two games before finding form.The Indian skipper firmly insisted that Rahul would continue playing a crucial role for Team India and said that he would play at the top of the order along with Rohit Sharma. Virat Kohli dismissed any concerns over KL Rahul's form and claimed that it only took five or six deliveries to get back into the zone. 

"He (KL Rahul) has been a champion player. If you look at his stats in the lat 2-3 years, they are probably better than anyone in T20. He will continue to be one of our main batters along with Rohit at the top of the order. We don't have any concerns there. It's a matter of five-six balls in this format and suddenly you are back in that zone", skipper Virat Kohli said at the post-match presentation.   

England go 2-1 up in the five-match series

Chasing 157, England were never in trouble as opener Jos Buttler ensured a very good start for them, and even though the 2010 T20 world champions did lose the wickets of Jason Roy and the current top-ranked T20I batsman Dawid Malan. Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow ensured that there were no further hiccups as two dropped catches by skipper Virat Kohli and leggie Yuzvendra Chahal also helped in their cause. In the end, the visitors got home by eight wickets in the penultimate over to go 2-1 up in the five-match series. Jos Buttler was adjudged the Man of the Match for his unbeaten 52-ball 83 at a strike rate of almost 160 that included five boundaries and four maximums.

Earlier, batting megastar Virat Kohli had played a blistering inning of an unbeaten 46-ball 77 after the hosts struggled to get going having lost the toss. The Men In Blue succeeded in adding 69 runs in their last five overs as they finished at 156/6 from their 20 overs. The fourth T20 between India and England will be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on March 18, Thursday.