Veteran commentator Aakash Chopra opened up on Virat Kohli’s dismissal in India’s first innings of the second Test against New Zealand due to his inability to read the length of the delivery as well. He shared that Kohli doesn’t usually play full tosses across the line. And, Kohli scored one run off nine deliveries as India were bowled out for 156 on Friday, October 25. New Zealand ended the day at 198/5 in their second innings, with an overall lead of 301 runs as well.

During a discussion on Colors Cineplex, Chopra said, “He definitely made a mistake in reading length. Drift was spoken about but the second thing is that as soon as a spinner releases the ball, the first thing you need to judge is length because length decides whether you will play the ball forward or back.”

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“I think it was an error in judgment. Once the ball was released from the hand, whether it drifted in or not, that’s a separate issue as to which line you played, but if it was a full toss, we are seeing Virat Kohli for the last 15 years, he doesn’t close the face of his bat and hit full tosses over midwicket,” Chopra again said.

In the same discussion, Aakash Chopra added that Virat Kohli had similarly misjudged the length in the Chennai Test against Bangladesh.

“In fact, if you remember the first match against Bangladesh, it was a very full delivery like this from Mehidy Hasan Miraz, he went to play the flick, got an inside edge, and was given out lbw. It is a similar kind of dismissal as he missed such a full delivery. If he hadn’t been reading the length wrong, he wouldn’t be hitting such a full delivery there. He used to hit it straight. If you ask him, he would say that it might have been better had he played straight,” Aakash Chopra concluded.