Virat Kohli's childhood coach SLAMS critics for questioning batter's place in squad for T20 World Cup 2022

Rajkumar's remarks came after cricket legend Kapil Dev stated that Kohli will need to perform better and if the spinner Ravichandran Ashwin could be dropped from the Test squad, even Kohli could be dropped from the T20I squad.

Team India batter Virat Kohli (Source: Twitter)

India star batter Virat Kohli's childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma on Monday slammed the statements about the former skipper being excluded from the upcoming T20 World Cup.

His remarks came after cricket legend Kapil Dev stated that Kohli will need to perform better and if the spinner Ravichandran Ashwin could be dropped from the Test squad, even Virat could be dropped from the T20I squad.

According to some reports, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) could be having the veteran sit out on the bench during the ICC World T20I 2022, which will take place in Australia in October this year.

"I find these statements to be funny. You should look at the records of those people who are making such comments. As you are talking about the T20 format, where Virat's average is 50 plus, his strike rate is 140, what else do you expect from a player to do?" Rajkumar told ANI.

"He has these records in almost 99 matches and not just 5 matches. If you are going to feel that after IPL's failure, Virat should not be included in the T20 World Cup squad, then I don't think that these people have done their homework correctly," he added.

The former skipper could manage scores of only 11 and 20 in the fifth and final Test against England at Edgbaston and continued his bad performances in T20Is, where he could score only 12 runs in two innings.

Also, Kohli had a sub-par IPL 2022, in which he could score only 341 runs in 16 games at an average of 22.73 and a sub-par strike rate of 115.98. He could score only two half-centuries in the tournament.