India's batting great Sunil Gavaskar has yet again defended Virat Kohli after his dismissal on the second day of the second Test against Australia. Kohli, who was dismissed for just 11 runs, edged a delivery from Scott Boland to the wicketkeeper.
Sunil Gavaskar strongly defends Virat Kohli after back-to-back failure in Adelaide Test
This was Kohli's second low score in the match, as he was earlier dismissed for 7 runs in the first innings. However, Gavaskar believes that Kohli could not have done much to avoid the dismissal, as the delivery was a perfect one to dismiss a world-class batter.
“Really quality bowling, this was really a peach of a delivery which he got. You see earlier on, around the off, he's been leaving the ball quite well. He’s not pushing at the ball, the thing is that sometimes he tends to push at deliveries. There was nothing wrong with, with what he did. It was just a superb delivery to get rid of a world-class batter,” said Gavaskar on Star Sports.
Former Australian batter Matthew Hayden also attributed Kohli's dismissal to the consistent line and length bowled by Scott Boland. He suggested that Boland's disciplined bowling forced Kohli into a mistake, leading to his dismissal.
“I think so look as Sunny said he's setting up into a position where he's got someone like Scott Bond honing in on a handkerchief. He's just not letting go of 5th 4th stump line. And so I actually, again, really love the way that he's set up in Perth, coming a lot closer to the ball. It's remarkable Mark to think that the one thing about test cricket is you have to be a great leaver of the ball and, and so Kohli has been that all greats of the game do that really well. It's no reward to you personally to do so other than to preserve your wicket,” Hayden said on Star Sports.
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India's batting struggled on the second day of the Adelaide Test, with several key players falling cheaply. KL Rahul was dismissed early on, surprised by a bouncer. Yashasvi Jaiswal, who showed some promise, was dismissed by Scott Boland on the first ball of his spell. Boland then went on to dismiss Virat Kohli. Mitchell Starc also contributed to India's woes, cleaning up Shubman Gill with a brilliant inswinger.
Rohit Sharma, the Indian captain, was dismissed by Pat Cummins, who bowled a superb delivery to bowl him out. India ended the day at 128/5, with Rishabh Pant and Nitish Kumar Reddy the unbeaten batsmen, still trailing Australia by 29 runs.