Michael Vaughan compares Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma’s partnership to the Sachin Tendulkar-Virender Sehwag duo

Michael Vaughan, the former England cricketer, found shades of Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag’s legendary duo when Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma batted together in the fifth T20I against the Brits on Saturday, March 20. At the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Rohit and Virat put on 94 runs for the first-wicket partnership off nine overs.

Ben Stokes separated them by dismissing Rohit, who was batting on 64 off 34. However, Virat went on to stay unbeaten on 80, guiding India to a formidable score of 224 for the loss of two wickets. Vaughan was amazed by the way Rohit and Virat complemented each other with precision during their stand.

Michael Vaughan lauds the Rohit-Virat duo

“Yeah, as pretty on the eye as Sachin and Virender Sehwag were… I mean Sehwag would go out there and play [aggressively] from ball one because he knew he had the consistency of Sachin at the other end. And Sachin just batted, always had a great strike rate because he got tremendous options off-side, on-side, front foot, back foot and that’s what Virat will bring to India,” Vaughan told on Cricbuzz.

Vaughan also praised Suryakumar Yadav for making his mark at the international level right from the word go. Yadav made his debut in the second game of the series where he didn’t get a chance to bat. Then he was dropped for the third T20I. In the fourth game, he smashed 57 runs before getting out to a controversial catch from Dawid Malan.

In the final T20I, he gave the finishing kick to India’s innings, scoring 32 runs. Vaughan reckons that Yadav has found his feet in international cricket and India’s top-three looks a power-packed combination.

“I was saying at the halfway house, have India stumbled across their best combination? We’ll have to wait and see. This may have been a plan by Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli to get to this combination but it seems to me they have stumbled across it.

“And because Suryakumar Yadav has played so well at No. 3, to me he looks like he’s completely made for international cricket, Virat had to go to open because you can’t have him at number 4. That top-3 now looks formidable,” Vaughan added.