If you’re a Virat Kohli fan, look away. Your king is not having the greatest of times. After getting dismissed for 6 and 17 in the first, Kohli’s struggles have reached India nets. He didn’t exactly flourish ahead of the first Test in Chennai and seems to have gotten no better on the eve of the second game. Troubled by Jasprit Bumrah ahead of the series opener, Kohli once again looked at sixes and sevens against the India pacer during their practice session on Wednesday, and wasn’t at ease against left-arm spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel either.
Kohli’s troubles in the nets wasn’t only confined to India’s bowlers. He was also dismissed by a net bowler named Jamshed Alam. A fast bowler from Lucknow bowling in the mid 130s, Alam foxed Kohli and got him out not once, but twice. As the youngster was in the middle of cherishing his once-in-a-lifetime moment – one he will live to tell his grandchildren – the occasion just got that much better when Kohli acknowledged just how good the ball was.
“I bowled 24 balls to Virat Kohli. My speed was around 135 kmph and I got him out twice. The practice pitch was helping pacers, though the Kanpur pitch generally helps spinners. Virat Kohli told me, ‘Well bowled bhai, kitne saal ke ho (How old are you)? I told him that I am 22. He replied, mehnat karte raho (keep working hard). I am over the moon after dismissing him,” Alam told NDTV.
What’s up with Virat Kohli?
In the build-up to the Chennai game, Kohli looked slightly unglued facing the six-foot-tall Gurnoor Brar. However, he soon got into his zone and unleashed a couple of thunderous pulls shots to ease some nerves. First Gurnoor, and now Alam, it’s as if Kohli is at a bit of discomfort in the nets, which is reflecting in his batting out in the middle. In the first Tests, Kohli fell to two of his biggest weaknesses – if you will – as he first edged Hasan Mahmud to Mushfiqur Rahim behind the stumps and then got out LBW to Mehidy Hasan Miraz. It was Kohli’s 39th dismissal to an off-spinner in Tests, and a controversial one at that as he refused to take the DRS despite edging the ball.
Kohli holds the key to India’s fortunes, and with three Tests to go ahead of the much-anticipated Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia, he would want to get bac in the same groove as he was in South Africa or the ODI World Cup before that. Kohli emerged as the leading run-scorer of that tournament in India and looked supremely confident during his knock of 76 against South Africa in Centurion. There onward, it’s been a mixed bag of form for Kohli as after scoring 741 runs in the Indian Premier League for Royal Challengers Bengaluru, form completely deserted him during the T20 World Cup.
It was his greatness that Kohli mustered every bit of his courage and determination to hit a match-winning fifty in the final of the T20 World Cup, but he once again seems to be stuck in a rut – as his returns in the Sri Lanka ODIs and the Chennai Test prove. With India eyeing a place in the World Test Championship final, hoping to get a third time lucky, all eyes will be on Kohli and how he shapes up from here.
