Ajit Agarkar has rubbished concerns over Virat Kohli's strike rate ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup and Rohit Sharma hinted that there may be a trump card lurking in the selection of four spinners. At a joint media conference in Mumbai on Wednesday, the chairman of the selection committee and India captain have also dismissed any worry about Hardik Pandya's fitness or form and felt sorry for Rinku Singh.

"It's probably the toughest thing that we've had to discuss, frankly. I mean, he's done nothing wrong, nor a Shubman Gill, for that matter. It's the combination (thing). We're not quite sure what conditions we'll get, so we wanted to try and have enough options," Agarkar said. Rinku has been a prolific scorer at the international level with 356 runs at an average of 89 and strike rate of 176 in 11 times he got to bat. The chief selector was at pains to explain that the decision was difficult but unavoidable.

Rohit admitted that the selection of four spinners - Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal - was his choice but refused to disclose the rationale. "The reason for four spinners is actually this, which I'm not going to say in public now. I won't say it now, but I'll definitely say it there (during the World Cup). The match starts at probably 10 in the morning. So, yeah, there's a little bit of technical aspect involved in this," Rohit said, leaving the matter to interpretation. "I wanted four spinners for sure, and three seamers (Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh and Mohammed Siraj and Hardik being the fourth one. So you get that balance of seamers as well. And then, you know, the spinners as well."

Agarkar gave no credence to the suggestions that there is worry about Kohli's strike, something that has been debated at different levels, particularly his strike rate in post PowerPlay overs. Kohli had been leading the IPL batting charts till recently (currently No 2) and is striking close to 150. "I don't think we've been discussing it yet, no. Look, he's been in great form," Agarkar said of the star batsman's performance in the IPL even, as Rohit dismissively smiled at the query.