T20 World Cup 2024: Why is Virat Kohli sitting out of India vs Bangladesh warm-up match in New York?

Veteran India batter Virat Kohli on Saturday sat out of India’s T20 World Cup warm-up clash against Bangladesh in New York as the Men in Blue won the toss and opted to bat first. Kohli had arrived in the United States only on Friday, and according to skipper Rohit Sharma, that’s primarily the reason why he is missing out. Meanwhile, Rohit confirmed that the rest of the players are all available to take part in India’s only practice game before the T20 World Cup gets underway.

“We will bat. Not for any particular reason, conditions here look a bit challenging. Virat has just arrived yesterday, he’s going to miss out, the rest are all available and we’ll see how to use them. We arrived quite early, so the body clock has adjusted, we just have to see how well we can adjust to these conditions,” Rohit said at the toss.

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On the other hand, Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto said that his team would have bowled anyway and added that Taskin Ahmed and Mustafizur Rahman has been rested. “We would have bowled, we’ll have to adjust the conditions and I want to know how the bowlers do. The boys have enjoyed themselves so far here, we are going to play with 13 players - Taskin and Mustafizur have been rested,” said Shanto.

Bangladesh are coming to this match on the back of a 2-1 series defeat to United States. Their first warm-up match against the same opposition in Dallas on 28 May was abandoned due to bad weather conditions.

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Squads:

India: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Sanju Samson, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj. (Reserves – Shubman Gill, Rinku Singh, Khaleel Ahmed and Avesh Khan)

Bangladesh: Najmul Hossain Shanto (capt), Taskin Ahmed (vc), Litton Das, Soumya Sarkar, Tanzid Hasan, Shakib Al Hasan, Towhid Hridoy, Mahmudullah, Jaker Ali, Tanvir Islam, Mahedi Hasan, Rishad Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Shoriful Islam, Tanzim Hasan (Traveling reserves: Hasan Mahmud, Afif Hossain)