India captain Virat Kohli has admitted that the presence of Vijay Shankar provides balance to the team but said that batting positions are not confirmed yet for the upcoming Cricket World Cup 2019.
Shankar was named in the Indian squad for the World Cup with the selectors claiming that the Tamil Nadu all-rounder is the best number four.
Kohli said that Shankar is a "proper" batsman, who provided another allrounder option to India.
"We tried a lot of things. There were a few combinations that we tried," Kohli told India Today.
"Eventually when Vijay came in, it was three dimensional: he can bowl, he can field, he can bat.
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"He is a proper batsman as well. That just gave us an option, saying why not have that kind of balance which other teams have had all these years. From that point of view we all agreed on it," Kohli added.
But Kohli refrained from committing batting positions.
"We are pretty sorted with how we want to go about the World Cup. Obviously who bats where is the decision for later," Kohli said.
India start their Cricket World Cup campaign against South Africa on June 5 at Southampton. Four days later, India play defending champions Australia in London.
