Why Virat Kohli has a reason to back openers KL Rahul and Murali Vijay?

After the second test match in Perth, Virat Kohli stated in the press conference that he is "more likely" to go with the same opening pair of KL Rahul and Murali Vijay.

Rahul has aggregated scores of 2, 44, 2 and 0, while Murali Vijay has scores of 11,18, 0 and 20. Even Nathon Lyon has scored more than both of them. While there is no doubt about the potential of both Rahul and Vijay, their scores have not reflected the same. Both Rahul and Vijay have been out of form for a very long time and maybe it is time that some harsh decisions have to be taken.

Any team which has done well overseas has had good opening partnerships. What a good opening partnership does is set the tone for the innings. The ball also gets old and gets softened hence it becomes easier to play for the middle order batsmen. When the openers are lost cheaply, pressure comes on the middle order to not only see off the new ball but to stitch a partnership to steer the team towards a good total.

In the Perth Test, for example, India were 8 for 2 and then Kohli and Pujara steadied the innings for India. In the second innings too, India was in a similar situation 6 for 2 when Virat came out to bat. But miracles don't happen every time, and this time Kohli couldn't score big. India lost by a margin of 146 runs and that difference was mostly because in both the innings, Australia had a much better opening partnership than India (Australia scored 112 in the 1st innings and 57 in the 2nd innings before losing their first wicket).

India's opening pair woes are not new. In the last few years, India have tried more than a dozen combinations at the top, but no pair has got success overseas. This has been a major reason of India's failure overseas.

Now that Mayank Agarwal has been added to the Test squad, India have Parthiv Patel and Agarwal as a possible opening pair. Kohli and co. could also try Rohit Sharma in the opening spot, although that experiment is highly unlikely to succeed. Even if they try a new pair, there is no guarantee of success.

Though Mayank Agarwal has had a great domestic season, he has no experience of the Australian pitches. Making debut against the best pace attack in the world in challenging conditions would be really difficult. Although Parthiv Patel is an attacking batsman, this pace trio of Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins give nothing away and it will not be easy for Parthiv to score coming from the bench.

Taking these facts into account, perhaps Kohli is not wrong for giving another shot to VIjay and Rahul. They have played the first two Tests and they at least have some experience of facing the mighty Australian pace attack. To be a little fair to the openers, the conditions in both of the two tests weren't easy and they had to face the deadly Starc-Hazlewood-Cummins trio.

They also gave a good start in the second innings of the 1st test. So, keeping fingers crossed, Kohli would most probably go for the same opening pair hoping that this time they stand up to India's cause.