Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar was slammed on Thursday for “belittling” legendary Indian cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly to praise on social media platform X. Manjrekar hailed Virat Kohli for sacrificing his preferred No.4 spot and take up the challenge of batting at No.3 in place of the injured Shubman Gill but in doing so, he also indirectly poked at Ganguly and Tendulkar.
“Hats off to Virat Kohli! Coming out to bat at no 3 bcoz the team needed it. Ganguly, Tendulkar were very keen to open in white ball cricket, but never wanted to go up the order in Tests. That’s a true champion right there for you! Virat,” Manjrekar wrote on X.
The tweet did not go down well with the fans as they slammed Manjrekar for disrespecting Tendulkar and Ganguly.
While Manjrekar’s tweet does hold a lot of ground factually in Tendulkar’s case, who has batted in the top order once in his 200-Test-long career, it falls short for Ganguly. The former India captain played his first Test tour at No.3 and got two centuries in the two Tests against England. In fact, Ganguly has a better record batting in the top order. In 19 innings, he has scored 763 runs at an average of 44.88 which is higher than his career average of 42.17.
Virat Kohli fails, India all out for 46
Kohli pushed himself to No.3 as GIll was ruled out of this Test with a stiff neck. He did that despite not having a good record batting at that number. Before Thursday, in his 116-Test-long career, Kohli batted at No.3 only six times without much success. He scored only 97 runs at an average of 19. He has no half-centuries to his name. His highest score batting at No.3 is 41. The last time he batted in the top-order was against West Indies in 2016.
The gamble, however, did not pay off, as Kohli was dismissed for a duck off 9 balls. He could not control a rising delivery from Will O’Rourke. The ball came back in sharply, caught the inner half of his gloves and went to the short fine leg fielder, who made no mistake.
India was skittled by New Zealand for 46 on Thursday, its lowest ever total in a home test match.
It was India’s third lowest test score, after 36 all out against Australia in Adelaide in 2020 and 42 all out against England at Lord’s in 1974.
Matt Henry took 5-15, while young pacer William O’Rourke took 4-22 at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
With the stadium lights on under dark clouds, India had five ducks in its innings — including star Virat Kohli — equalling its second most zeros in a test innings.
For New Zealand, Henry became the third fastest bowler to 100 test wickets, in 26 innings, one short of Richard Hadlee’s record of 25.
After the first day was washed out, India was down to 34-6 by lunch.
After the break, Henry dismissed Ravichandran Ashwin on the first ball.
Then Rishabh Pant, top-scoring with 20 runs, was out caught, again off Henry.
Henry completed his fiver for the fourth-best haul for a New Zealand pacer in India, to reduce the home side to 40-9.
