Playing around the fifth-sixth stump line has been one of Virat Kohli’s kryptonites. It has been noticed on numerous occasions that Kohli has been dismissed while meddling with the outside off-stump deliveries, which he could have easily left. The same pattern of dismissals is noticed in the ongoing Test series against England.
Kohli had got off to starts in both innings of the ongoing Lord’s Test but was dismissed while playing the fifth-sixth stump line ball. The Indian captain was set up beautifully by Sam Curran on the penultimate day as the left-arm seamer got the ball to move away from the right-hander after getting to move back into him on a couple of occasions.
However, Kohli poked at the ball, which took the outside edge of his bat and it was a massive wicket for England. In fact, Kohli hasn’t been able to get the big runs for the team in the recent past and his form is also a concern for the team as he is India’s best batsman.
Sunil Gavaskar said on Sony Sports Network, “That method has been successful for him. He has got 8000 Test runs with that back and across movement. But he is playing at deliveries way outside off stump and a little too early in the innings. This time around, the foot is somewhere else, the bat is somewhere else, which means that he hasn’t really played well. It could be about this much-talked-about word intent but in a five-day game, every batsman goes in to score runs. It’s the method that differs.”
Meanwhile, Kohli has spoken highly of playing with intent and the Little Master believes that it can backfire sometimes as the Indian captain is looking to score off balls, which he ideally should leave.
“When you talk about this ‘trying to take this attack to the opposition’ approach, and if that is what intent is, it can get you into trouble like we saw. I think every batsman should be left alone to find his own method. This is a Test match. In ODI and T20I, it’s a completely different situation, but over here, what they need to look into is get themselves in and try to play in the old-fashioned V. Play only when you have fought through.”
Kohli scored 42 in the first innings and 20 runs in the second dig. Thus, it has been surprising to note that he hasn’t been able to convert his starts into big scores, which was not the case in the past.
