Virat Kohli‘s struggles with the bat continued in the third Test match against Australia in Brisbane as the star batter was dismissed cheaply once again. Kohli’s problems with balls outside the off-stump once again proved to be his downfall as he edged a delivery off Josh Hazlewood to Alex Carey behind the stumps. Former India batter Aakash Chopra believes that Kohli should have left the ball alone considering his struggles against similar deliveries. Chopra also recalled Sachin Tendulkar‘s 241 in Sydney where he did not play a single cover drive and remarked that Kohli should take inspiration from that knock.
“I remember the Sydney Test match after Sachin Tendulkar was repeatedly getting out to deliveries outside the off-stump. Can Virat Kohli do that? He will have to do that because if he keeps getting out like this, the vulnerability will be exposed even more,” the former India opener said on YouTube.
Chopra also said that Kohli was struggling against short-pitch deliveries and his struggles were once again revealed while playing against Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc.
“You know that he (Kohli) is not at the top of his game. So what is the road ahead?” he added.
Meanwhile, KL Rahul credited tailenders Akash Deep and Jasprit Bumrah for their unbeaten 39-run partnership for the last wicket that avoided a follow-on in the third Test against Australia on Tuesday.
The pacers batted their hearts out to rescue India from a dire situation on rain-hit Day 4 in Brisbane. India were 252/9 at stumps with Akash remaining unbeaten on 27 off 31 balls while Bumrah went not out on 10 runs. India still trail by 193 runs, and the possible result of the match depends on the weather conditions on Wednesday.
“It’s very good to see when the lower order chips in and scores runs. That’s something that we discuss a lot in our meetings and the bowlers work really hard on their batting as well and so it’s really good to see that they could go there and get that little partnership and avoid the follow-on makes a huge difference knowing that there’s a bit of rain around and so much of the game has been lost to rain. We need to find a way to stay in the game and I think Akash and Bumrah did that at the end and so a good way to end the day for us,” Rahul, who scored 84 in the match, said in the press conference at the end of the day’s play.
“I’m happy that they could really play some shots and very exciting shots and it was a great contest at the end, the last half an hour, when they batted not just the runs that they got, just the heart that they showed to keep away the bouncers. There’s a lot of pace and bounce in the wickets, so to get behind the ball, defend really well, leave the ball and hit some nice shots is really good. It will give them confidence and will give us as a group a lot of confidence,” he added.
(With IANS inputs)
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