While there has been plenty of discussion around Hardik Pandya’s role as an all-rounder in the Indian team, we witnessed an unusual bowling option being utilised in the warm-up game against Australia. Kohli rolled his arm in the warm-up game against Australia bowling two overs in the innings.
Kohli’s bowling to Australia
The Indian skipper came in to bowl just after the powerplay overs. Steve Smith and Glenn Maxwell were trying to do damage control after three early wickets. The Aussie batters struggled to figure out the bowling angle of Kohli and gave just four runs in his first over. Smith did not score of the first two balls and was even amused by the part-timer’s bowling action. Later in the innings, Kohli bowled in the 13th over. He gave eight runs from the over including the boundary off Marcus Stoinis’ over. While Kohli has been expensive in the format in Indian Premier League (IPL), it turned out to be a decent spell of bowling in the end giving just 12 runs from his two overs.
Last time Kohli bowled
It has been more than five years since Kohli bowled in T20Is. Interestingly, the last time he rolled his arm was in a World Cup game too. It was the semi-final against West Indies at the Wankhede Stadium where he bowled 10 deliveries, gave 15 runs and got the big wicket of opener Johnson Charles. So far, Kohli has bowled more than 24 overs in T20Is, picked up four wickets and conceded runs at an economy rate of 8.13.
What Rohit said at toss
“We want to make sure that we get the 6th bowling option, some options in the batting order as well, we'll try all those things today,” Rohit Sharma said at the coin toss.
While many expected Hardik Pandya to bowl after a long gap of over three months, it was Kohli who was handed the ball. If it was a one-off incident where Kohli bowled, it does not a topic for concern. However, if India are genuinely thinking of using him as an option when one of the five bowlers are having a bad day, the move may backfire big time.
