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Australia's spin-bowling all-rounder Ashton Agar has lauded Virat Kohli for his ability to keep spinners under pressure by rotating the strike. In his 84-run knock against Australia in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 semifinal, Kohli took 56 singles on a spin-friendly Dubai pitch.
"It is not the damage that he can do to the fence, it's just the fact that you cannot build pressure on him. So it's really hard to get him out in a sense. You never really feel like you're on top of him unless the ball is really spinning. And you don't get a lot of pitches in one-day cricket like that," left-arm spinner Agar said on ESPNcricinfo's Match Day.
Kohli scored 23 runs from 24 balls against leg-spinner Adam Zampa. He countered young Tanveer Sangha by scoring 12 runs off nine deliveries against him. Agar said that it is at times frustrating to bowl to him, especially for his ability to change the face of the bat using his wrists very late.
"That's the frustrating part about bowling to him. He has this fantastic ability to hit your best ball, the top of middle stump, slightly spinning away, he holds the bat's face slightly longer than other batters do, opens it in the last second, and hits it in the cover point gap. He's probably the best in the world at doing that and he's very difficult to build pressure on," Agar said.
Agar added that Kohli was the fulcrum around which the Indian team built the innings to overcome Australia.
Agar further praised Kohli for relying on the traditional approach by taking singles in the modern-day cricket where batters have resorted to ultra-agressive approach.
"India batted around Virat beautifully. The guys who came in kept pushing the rate and allowed Virat to do his thing, hit the odd boundary and just keep ticking over. I saw a stat that Virat has scored the most singles since the year 2000, which is phenomenal. It was a bit of a masterclass from him and all the batters contributed nicely," said the 31-year-old spinner who has 21 wickets from 22 ODIs.
Agar dismissed Kohli twice in ODIs
Agar's last ODI appearance was in September 2023. He was dismissed Kohli twice in ODIs. The first dismissal was at Holkar Stadium, Indore in 2017. In 2023, he got rid of Kohli who scored a half-century on a spin-friendly track at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai.
