Pietersen urges Virat Kohli to persist with Vijay Shankar: Former English cricketer wants India to continue with Vijay Shankar ahead of Rishabh Pant.
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The ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 is into its most important stage now. With only a week left into the league stage, it is the time when teams will start to get eliminated from the competition. Since 3-4 teams are vying for one spot, expect the upcoming matches to be nothing short of cliffhangers.
Among those tight encounters will be the one scheduled to be played tomorrow at Edgbaston between hosts England and India. The reason why the match will be looked forward to is because an Indian victory might make things extremely difficult for England.
Touted as the favourites before the start of the tournament, England not making the quarter-finals will come as a colossal shock for both their cricketers and fans.
Pietersen urges Virat Kohli to persist with Vijay Shankar
While India are the only unbeaten team in the tournament as of now, they would be looking to continue their streak against a patchy England side. As far as team selection is concerned, India will have to decide whether they want to continue with Mohammed Shami or bring back a “fit” Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
While all-rounder Vijay Shankar hasn’t done too bad, there have been widespread calls for him being replaced by wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant. While a majority of Indian fans might be wanting for the swashbuckling southpaw to get a go, former England batsman Kevin Pietersen has spoken of the otherwise.
Taking to his Twitter account, Pietersen has urged India captain Virat Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri to persist with Shankar. Pietersen, who is currently in India with broadcaster Star Sports, believes that Pant still needs another three weeks of preparation before playing a match.
Dear Virat & Ravi – please don’t drop Vijay Shankar.
I think he’s coming into his own and would potentially win you tomorrow’s game.
Don’t think about Pant. He needs another 3 weeks prep before I think he can get into your World Cup side.Thanks, boys!
— Kevin Pietersen🦏 (@KP24) June 29, 2019
The tweet instantly went viral, with a lot of Twitter users coming up with memes on KP’s tweet. KP surely saw a few of those and then put out another tweet, one that had Kohli’s reaction to his earlier tweet.
Virat found my tweet earlier quite funny! pic.twitter.com/9gf3QVbWLA
— Kevin Pietersen🦏 (@KP24) June 29, 2019
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