Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has criticized Virat Kohli for playing outside his off stumps too early in his innings. Kohli was dismissed by Sam Curran for 20 when he went fishing outside the off-stump during the second innings of the Lord’s Test.
It was the third straight innings on this England tour when Kohli got out playing outside his off-stump. James Anderson removed him for a golden duck in Nottingham before Ollie Robinson dismissed the Indian skipper in the same manner.
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Sunil Gavaskar, meanwhile, mentioned Kohli had his foot going in another direction while his bat was somewhere else.
“That method has been successful for him. He has got 8000 Test runs with that back and across the movement. But he is playing at deliveries way outside off stump and a little too early in the innings,” Gavaskar said on the Sony Sports Network.
“This time around, the foot is somewhere else, the bat is somewhere else, which means that he hasn’t really played well. It could be about this much-talked-about word intent but in a five-day game, every batsman goes in to score runs. It’s the method that differs.”
Kohli was looking in good nick during the second innings and had played four boundary shots during his stay at the crease. Gavaskar feels he should be more cautious while playing his shots.
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“When you talk about this ‘trying to take this attack to the opposition’ approach, and if that is what intent is, it can get you into trouble as we saw. I think every batsman should be left alone to find his own method,” he further added.
“This is a Test match. In ODI and T20I, it’s a completely different situation, but over here, what they need to look into is get themselves in and try to play in the old-fashioned V. Play only when you have fought through.”
India were at 181/6 by the stumps of day four with Rishabh Pant and Ishant Sharma being in the middle. Earlier, Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara added 100 runs for the fourth wicket to save India’s from getting rolled over by England.
