India did not have a team that could win 2019 Cricket World Cup, believes Aakash Chopra

Former cricketer Aakash Chopra, on Monday said he believes that Virat Kohli-led team could not win the 2019 World Cup because India did not have a winning side. A report in Hindustan Times cited the cricketer’s YouTube channel ‘Aakash Vani’ where he compared India’s 2011 World Cup-winning team with the 2019 team that lost in the semifinal and said that if one had to choose between Sachin Tendulkar and Rohit Sharma, then it would be an extremely tough call as they cancel each other out. He mentioned of Rohit’s five centuries in a World Cup edition, which no one else has achieved. “Between Rahul/Dhawan and Sehwag, my heart says to keep Sehwag ahead, put let me keep Dhawan ahead just for argument sake,” he added. He further went on to state that between Gambhir and Kohli, he would choose the Kohli of 2019. As for Yuvraj, he said that the former cricketer is winning the race “hands down” against “Dinesh Karthik/Kedar Jadhav/Pant/Pandya as a batsman, as a bowler, as a full package match-winner.” According to a report in Sportskeeda, for the two middle-order spots, Chopra rated Suresh Raina higher than Hardik Pandya or Kedar Jadhav and favoured MS Dhoni of 2011 over the one in 2019. When it came to bowlers, he picked Harbhajan Singh, stating that Ravindra Jadeja would be slightly ahead in batting in international ODI stage. Between Zaheer Khan and Jasprit Bumrah, he said, “Let us cancel out Zaheer and Bumrah, they are at par as bowlers almost, both are match-winners.” For the final two posts, he put Mohammed Shami slightly over Munaf Patel and gave Ashish Nehra the edge over Kuldeep Yadav or Yuzvendra Chahal. He went on to add that when doing the full comparison, Dhoni’s team is much stronger and a “match winning team.”