New Delhi. WTC Final: Rohit Sharma’s team India (India vs Australia) is in a bad condition against Australia in the World Test Championship Final. Indian batting seems to be struggling in response to Australia’s 469 runs in the first innings. By the time of stumps on the second day of the match, the Indian team’s score was 151 runs losing 5 wickets. To save the follow-on, the team still needs 119 more runs.
In response to the Australian score, Team India lost the wickets of Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara while reaching 50 runs. At this time the eyes of the fans were completely focused on Virat Kohli. The reason for this belief was also that Virat has been in strong form for some time and has recently returned in IPL-2023 after scoring a lot of runs.
King Kohli became the victim of Mitchell Starc
However, this hope could not be fulfilled and Virat also became a victim of Mitchell Starc’s ball. His overhead catch in the slips stunned the Indian fans even as Smith caught it beautifully. This ball from left-arm pacer Starc came out leaving the off stump which Kohli tried to defend but the ball hit the upper part of the bat and the gloves. Went to the touching slip where Smith jumped and took a great catch. Former captain of the Indian team and cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar while analyzing why this ball proved fatal for Virat?
Virat was ‘committed’ on the front foot
Talking to Star Sports, ‘Sunny’ said, ‘Only a maximum of two bouncers are allowed in an over in Test cricket, so most of the batsmen play on the front foot. For this reason, by shifting to the backfoot, they are not able to give themselves that extra yard where you can drop the wrist down and let the ball go. Gavaskar said, ‘Of course it was a difficult ball because Virat was ‘committed’ on the front foot. His weight was concentrated on the front foot, so he could not get his bat off the line of the ball at the last moment. Being on the back foot, he could play this type of ball because in this position he got some extra time to decide Would have known whether to leave the ball or play.
At the end of the second day of the match, Ajinkya Rahane was at the crease after scoring 29 and wicketkeeper Shrikar Bharat 4 runs. Australia made a mammoth score of 469 runs in their first innings which included centuries from Travis Head (163) and Steve Smith (121). For India, Mohammad Siraj took maximum four and Shardul Thakur and Shami took two wickets each.
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Tags: India vs Australia, mitchell starc, sunil gavaskar, Virat Kohli, WTC Final
FIRST PUBLISHED : June 09, 2023, 16:10 IST