Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Kane Williamson try to keep up with younger guys in T20Is: Luke Ronchi

India tour of New Zealand: BlackCaps batting coach Luke Ronchi said it’s not always possible to go all guns blazing in T20I cricket and conditions dictate the style of play of most teams.

What is Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s T20I future? (AP Photo)

By India Today Web Desk: New Zealand batting coach Luke Ronchi on Thursday said modern-day greats like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Kane Williamson will find it hard to emulate youngsters who are playing a more fearless brand of cricket in T20Is. However, Ronchi said they will always dry and keep up with the younger guys, providing their teams a good mix of experience in the shortest format of the game.

A lot has been said about teams like India and New Zealand not playing the style of cricket that England play in white-ball cricket. England have been going all-out in T20Is and ODIs and their approach has yielded results as the Three Lions won the ODI World Cup in 2019 and the T20 World Cup in 2022.

Questions were asked of Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson’s approach in the T20 World Cup and the role of an anchor in the shortest format of the game has come under the scanner. Rohit Sharma, who led India in T20 World Cup 2022, tried to be aggressive at the top but the skipper failed to be consistent.

Kohli hit a 50 off 40 balls in the semi-final against England but India’s score of 178 was not enough. Williamson hit 178 runs in 5 matches at a strike rate of less than 120.

“It’s a hard transition to make. But those playes are always trying to get better, trying to keep up with the younger guys. The younger guys have a different mentality and a team does well when you have a mix of both, they bounce ideas off each other,” Luke Ronchi said on the eve of the T20I series between India and New Zealand in Wellington.

GO ALL GUNS BLAZING?

Furthermore, Ronchi said conditions dictate batters’ style of play in T20 cricket though that strategy can “hurt you in the result”, especially when a conservative approach is adopted.

England decimated both India and Pakistan in the semi-final, winning the batting powerplay on both occasions. The likes of Jos Buttler and Alex Hales tried to be as aggressive at the top, allowing the rest of the batters to bat without pressure in the middle-overs.

On the other hand, teams like India, Pakistan and New Zealand were not able to go as aggressively as England in the powerplay.

“You play according to the conditions that are in front of you. Sometimes people think you have to go all guns blazing every game.

“In an ICC World Cup there are new, used, slow surfaces and different conditions,” Ronchi said ahead of the first T20I between New Zealand and India.

“Not only the Indians but we also did it and lots of other teams play with what they have in front of them and sometimes it’s conservative in the way your approach the game.”

The former New Zealand batter added that teams can tend to think in hindsight that they could have been more proactive but reiterated that conditions dictate the style of play.

“It can hurt you in the result. When you lose you think ‘we could have done this differently.’ But the majority of the time conditions dictate how you should play and the players of the team know what they have to do.”

Williamson will lead New Zealand in a 3-match T20I series against India, starting November 18. India have rested their senior stars, including Rohit and Kohli, and Hardik Pandya is set to lead the visiting team.