Jan 01, 2025 09:32 PM IST
Aaron Finch, who has played Virat Kohli at RCB in the past, said that the 36-year-old is trying to pick a fight to get the best out of himself.
Former Australian captain Aaron Finch has made a bold claim that under-fire Indian batting maestro Virat Kohli is trying to be antagonistic in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Kohli has not been able to live up to the expectations since the Perth Test and has been going through a rough patch. The 37-year-old has been committing the same mistake this series to get dismissed – edging the ball outside off-stump to the wicketkeeper and slip cordon.
Kohli’s decline in red-ball cricket was even more glaring. The batting maestro could muster only 417 runs in 2024, averaging a mere 24.52. His persistent vulnerability outside the off-stump – frequently edging deliveries to the slip cordon or wicketkeeper – proved to be his undoing, especially during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Finch, who has played Kohli at RCB in the past, said that the 36-year-old is trying to pick a fight to get the best out of himself.
“Virat’s someone who’s always thrived on pressure and he’s thrived when his back is against the wall. It just feels like at this stage, he is trying to put his own back against the wall. He’s trying to be antagonistic, he’s trying to almost pick a fight because that’s when he plays when he feels like someone’s coming at him. That’s when he puts all his skills on show,” Finch said on Around the Wicket Podcast.
‘Virat Kohli is pushing other people to make…’
Kohli had an on-field tussle with Sam Konstas on Day 1 of the Boxing Day Test. The two bumped shoulders and exchanged a few words in the first session’s play at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The senior Indian batter was fined 20 per cent match fees for his actions on the field.
The former Australia skipper said that Kohli has not been at his best in the series but he also admitted that he did look solid in the first innings at MCG but the Aussie bowlers did well to get the better of him.
“It just feels like he’s pushing other people to make him feel like that and we’ve not seen the best of him in this series yet. He looked beautiful in the first innings at Melbourne and looked like he wasn’t going to get out but Australia have bowled well,” he added.
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