The Indian skipper, Virat Kohli has recalled that Mayank Agarwal’s character stood out for him to select the latter for the Melbourne Test during the 2018-19 Australia series. Mayank had made his Test debut against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and he managed to register a half-century in his very first innings in the longest format.
During a recent chat with Mayank, Virat said, “I had seen you play for RCB, even then you played international bowlers with conviction and you would take them on. You were performing in first-class matches in a dominating way. I would say your character stood out for me than the number of runs. I knew you would be fearless without having any baggage.”
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In Test cricket, Agarwal has amassed as many as 974 runs from 11 matches at an average of 57.29 with three centuries as an opening batsman. The Indian skipper also explained what he notices first in a player and added that it is important that guys in the team look to face new challenges and emerge triumphantly.
Kohli elaborated, “For me, the biggest marker is how a person approaches the game, so for example when you opened and we made Vihari open with you. The first opportunity we presented Vihari to open the batting, he said yes to it and that matters me to the most. So, a guy who wants to get into tough situations will come out either holding his head high or learning from his mistakes.”
Kohli and Mayank can be expected to be seen playing for their respective franchises Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) respectively in the Indian Premier League (IPL) starting from September 19 in the UAE.
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The comparisons between Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar have a regular for the Indian fans and a lot of them have gone on to predict that the current Indian skipper to break the records set by Tendulkar. Tendulkar announced his retirement from international cricket after scoring 100 international centuries, while Kohli is already standing at the tally at 70 centuries across all formats.
In the current scenario, Virat is standing at the numero uno position in the ICC ODI rankings while he is in the second place in Tests rankings. Kohli has so far played 86 Tests, scoring 7,240 runs with 27 centuries at an average of 53.62.
