Sri Lankan batting legend Kumar Sangakkara feels that every cricketing era has a “defining pair” which goes on to build the narrative and the duo of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma make one such pair for India in modern-day cricket.
It is worth highlighting that the duo have scored nearly 36,000 runs across all three formats and Sangakkara feels that the duo have a similar kind of aura which former Indian captains Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid had in the late 1990s and the early 2000s.
“There is something very special about Virat and Rohit. That fact that rules have changed and run-scoring might have become slightly easier in one-day cricket, but it”s incredibly hard, the volume of cricket that India athletes play,” Sangakkara said on Star Sports” ”Cricket Connected”.
The Sri Lankan batting maestro feels that Rohit and Virat also deserve the respect since players from the previous eras did not have to constantly play all three formats.
“So, I think you have to have a lot of respect for Rohit and Virat but understand that it”s all because of the players that have gone before and have done all the hard work then as well.
“So, it”s a knock-on effect, so in every era, there”s always a defining pair and in the modern era, it”s Rohit and Virat for India for sure.”
Sangakkara recalled the era of Dravid and Ganguly and compared them with Kohli and Rohit where batsmen have been destructive despite following orthodox technique.
“If you look at Rahul and Dada, both of them are orthodox batsmen. They play beautiful cricket shots and are very technically correct. Dravid may be a little bit more so, but the ability to be as destructive with such rate and precision stroke-making is something that has to be really admired.”
“If you take the modern-day game, India has two of the best players in Virat and Rohit, who play orthodox cricket but who are just absolutely destructive in any format of the game. You don”t have to muscle the ball or put too much effort or look ugly doing it, they just play good cricket shots and results come,” he concluded.