Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar opens on Virat Kohli’s dismissal and pointed out what went wrong with Virat Kohli during his dismissal in the ongoing World Test Championship final on Thursday.
Gavaskar Opens on Kohli’s Dismissal in WTC Final
World Test Championship 2023 final is scheduled to play from June 7 to 11 in Kennington Oval, London between India and Australia.
During the 19th over of India’s first inning, a bouncing short ball from Starc struck the shoulder of Virat’s bat and slips into the hands of Steve Smith at the second slip and makes him walk back to the pavilion.
Starc’s cross-seam delivery kicked off the surface with some extra bounce and took Virat Kohli by surprise. Even former Pakistan cricketer Basit Ali has made a shocking comment on Indian batters’ dismissals and accused Pat Cummins-led Australia of ball-tampering.
- Average bounce for deliveries 9-9.5m: 1.11m
- Starc’s dismissal ball to Kohli(9.19m): 1.54m
Notably, the ball was changed in the 18th over of the innings and in the 19th over Virat Kohli got dismissed.
“Because of the fact that there are only two bouncers allowed per over nowadays, most of the batters are on to the front foot which means that they are not able to get on to the backfoot and give themselves that extra yard where you could have probably dropped your wrist or let the ball go.
Yes, it was a tough delivery because he was committed onto the front foot, his weight was so much on the front foot that he wasn’t able to withdraw his bat at the last moment,” said Gavaskar in Star Sports.
India’s top-order performed poorly to see the side getting reduced to 71 for 4. Rohit Sharma (15), Shubman Gill (13), Cheteshwar Pujara (14) and Kohli (14) failed to make an impact. This happened after the Indian bowlers made a good comeback on Day 2 to bundle out Australia for 469.
“The Indian bowlers did a superb job, no question about it. But today (Thursday), I think the batters had to stand up. And on a pitch like this, I think they should have stood up,” added the India great.
Overcast conditions and a hint of green on the wicket persuaded India to bowl first after winning the toss, and the strategy seemed sensible given the selection of a fourth fast bowler instead of the world’s top-ranked Test bowler – spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.
With Australia 76/3 at one stage it looked as if India’s selection could be the right one. But an unbroken 251-run stand between Head and Smith helped Australia to 469 at the close, leaving India on the back foot in the game.
Earlier, Bowling coach Paras Mhambrey backs Indian bowlers after an unimpressive first day in WTC 2023 final and explains the reason for the exclusion of Ashwin from the playing 11.
While on the other hand, the Australian bowling attack came out strong, reducing India to 151-5 by stumps on day two. Pat Cummins drew first blood by removing Rohit Sharma, while Scott Boland and Cameron Green showcased their skills to dismiss Shubman Gill and Chiteshwar Pujara, respectively.
The left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc generated extra bounce to dismiss Virat Kohli for 14 runs while Lyon dismissed Jadeja for 48 runs. Before the Day 3 lunch break, India scored 260 runs for 6 wickets loss where Ajinkya Rahane and Shardul Thakur stood firm with scored 89 and 36 runs respectively.
