5 Players who can replace Rohit Sharma as India's opener against Australia in ODI and T20I series

The Indian cricket team will return to the cricket field next week after a long gap of almost nine months. To begin the Australian tour, Virat Kohli’s men will square off against the hosts in a high-profile ODI series. Unfortunately, the Men in Blue will not have the services of their match-winning opener Rohit Sharma.

The Mumbai Indians skipper is currently nursing an injury. The BCCI has asked him to rest and not named in the limited-overs series. Wicket-keeper batsman KL Rahul will play the vice-captain’s role in Rohit Sharma’s absence. However, the most important question is which player would replace him as an opener.

Rohit Sharma has done a phenomenal job as an opening batsman in white-ball cricket. He played a crucial role in the team’s home ODI series win over Australia earlier this year, while he formed a fantastic opening combination with KL Rahul in the T20I series against New Zealand. The Kiwis whitewashed the Men in Blue in the subsequent ODI series. Notably, the Hitman did not feature in those three games. Thus, replacing Rohit Sharma as India’s opener will be a hard job.

Here are the five players who could possibly replace him at the top of the order:

1. Virat Kohli 

Starting with a surprising name on the list, captain Virat Kohli could open the innings in the limited-overs series. The right-handed batsman recently opened for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Eliminator match against the Sunrisers Hyderabad. Kohli often scores big when he gets a chance to open the innings in T20s.

The Delhi-based player has registered all of his five IPL tons while opening the innings. Talking about his numbers as an opener in IPL, Kohli has scored 2345 runs in 61 innings at a magnificent average of 47.86. His strike rate of 140.17 as an opening batsman is much better than his career strike rate.

Virat has also opened the innings for India 13 times in white-ball cricket. He has amassed 198 runs in 7 T20I innings, while in the 6 ODI innings he opened, Kohli managed 161 runs at an average of 26.83.