Can Kohli, Rohit help lift India Cup after 13 yrs?

It's tough to find two cricketers who are so different from each other yet so closely intertwined by the same thread of fate as Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Rohit's initiation into top-flight cricket came at the idyllic Belfast in 2007 and Kohli's a year later at the more conventional Dambulla. Another intriguing chapter of this journey together will potentially come to an end next month in the stunning Caribbean Isles.

The next T20 World Cup is in 2026, to be jointly hosted by India and Sri Lanka, but Rohit would be touching 40 then and Kohli would be 38. The 50-over version is a further one year away. It's hard to see them playing in any of those, considering the increasingly strike-rate oriented nature of the game. So, both Rohit and Kohli will want to leave the stage with the winner's medal around their neck next month.

Should they achieve that, it would be their second each after the 2007 T20 World Cup (Rohit) and the 2011 50-over showpiece (Kohli). And it will be a perfect send off for two players who have had an immeasurable impact on India's white-ball fortunes in the last 17 years.

However, the Kohli-Rohit story is not one of bromance. It's based more on mutual respect and the awareness that they should not step into each other's space. Kohli has talked about the admiration he has had for Rohit since the very beginning of their careers.

"I was filled with curiosity about a player. People kept on saying – 'This is one player who is rising rapidly'. I used to wonder that even though I am a young player, no one talks about me, then who is this player. "But when he (Rohit) stepped out to bat, I was all quiet. It was amazing to watch him play. In fact, I haven't seen a player time the ball better than him," Kohli had said in 'Breakfast With Champions'.

After two months of intense competitive cricket under night lights, the Indian cricket team, sans Virat Kohli, began its preparations for the T20 World Cup with a morning training session here, keeping in mind the 10.30am starts for all its preliminary games.

Having played 90 per cent of the matches under lights in the scorching Indian summer, the idea would be to adjust to pleasant mornings where temperatures will hover between 25 to 27 degree celsius with very less humidity.