India vs Pakistan, T20 World Cup: Brilliant form of IND batter has relieved pressure off Virat Kohli, says Ian Chappell

Australia legend Ian Chappell feels that a certain India batter's form has relieved Rohit Sharma and co. from relying too heavily on Virat Kohli.

With India facing Pakistan in their T20 World Cup opener, all eyes will be on Rohit Sharma's batting order. India underperformed in last year's T20 World Cup, failing to impress while batting. Also, the absence of Jasprit Bumrah could prove to be crucial for India. But Ian Chappell feels that India's batting has improved due to the 'brilliant form of Suryakumar Yadav' which 'relieves them from having to rely too heavily on Virat Kohli'. The Australia legend expects Mohammed Shami to fill in Bumrah's void. (IND vs PAK Live Score and Updates)

Ian Chappell spoke about India's batting form in the T20 World Cup. (Twitter)

Writing for ESPNcricinfo, Chappell stated, "While India have a strong playing group, their players also benefit from performing in a highly competitive IPL tournament. Their practice matches in Australia will have given India the opportunity to acclimate to local conditions."

"The loss of Jasprit Bumrah is unfortunate but his replacement, Mohammed Shami, is a good bowler. If Shami receives a reasonable share of T20 luck then Bumrah's loss won't be too heavily felt."

"India's batting fortunes are more evenly shared and the brilliant form of Suryakumar Yadav relieves them from having to rely too heavily on Virat Kohli. The success or otherwise of their spinners, and whether Hardik Pandya can clear the longer boundaries, will play an important role for India", he further added.

India face Pakistan in their Super 12 fixture, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne. Rohit has won the toss and opted to field. After winning the toss, Rohit said, "We are going to field first. Looks like a good pitch, it's always nice to bowl with overcast conditions. Think the ball will swing around a bit, and we need to take its advantage. Preparations have been good. We played a couple of practice games in Brisbane. Time to come out and enjoy ourselves now. We were expecting nothing less than this, hopefully we'll entertain them (the crowd). We have seven batters, three seamers and two spinners."

Playing XIs-

India: Rohit Sharma(c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik(w), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh

Pakistan: Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Shan Masood, Haider Ali, Mohammad Nawaz, Shadab Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Asif Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah