Virat Kohli has been having a bad run in the tournament so far. We have not seen Kohli play like this ever, he has not been able to judge the ball trajectory of the ball and making mistakes which he never used to. In Pune he shouldered arms on Steve O’Keefe’s delivery which went straight into the gate, shattering the stumps. But, we all thought that error judgement was a one-time thing but that moment was short-lived as Kohli shouldered arms again and gave his wicket to Nathan Lyon on a platter.
Kohli was looking good on the crease, picking up singles and trying to form a partnership with opener KL Rahul who had reached his third half-century. He had played a couple of magnificent cover drives and the fans had already visualised a comeback innings from Kohli but it happened the other way round.
He was batting on 12 in 34th over. Lyon had taken a wicket of Cheteshwar Pujara on the stroke of lunch break. Despite the Pune debacle, Kohli had started to show promise. Lyon was able to extract turn and bounce from the wicket but it was unlike Pune Test.
Lyon had beaten Kohli with his turn and bounce early on in the over. The ball had bounced from good length and almost brushed Kohli’s gloves and carried to Mathew Wade. Kohli had that imprinted in his mind the next time Lyon bowled a delivery like that but his variation and uneven bounce got the better off him.
The ball did not turn much and went a bit straighter that before hitting Kohli’s pads and trapping him in front of the wickets. He was stunned and Australians were celebrating as they have got the ‘danger man’ once again.
To add to viewers’ surprise Kohli took a review which went in vain as the replay showed that the ball had hit him in front of the wickets. Kohli started walking off the field as soon as he saw the replay on the big screen.
India continued their bad run in the series as they got bundled out for 189 in the first innings before the third session could end. Australia are trailing by 149 runs with 10 wickets in hand. It will be tough for the hosts to make a comeback in the second Test.
