Dinesh Karthik is of the opinion that Virat Kohli should engage in domestic cricket to improve his batting against spin bowling. His comments came after the dismal performance by the 35-year-old in the second test against New Zealand in Pune.
Kohli has been struggling to prevail against spinners on Asian pitches for the past few years. Since 2021, the right-hander has managed to score only 623 runs at an average of 28.31, while being dismissed by tweakers on 22 occasions in 27 innings. In particular, he hasn’t been able to fare well against the left-arm spinners. This is in stark contrast to his performance in 2012-20, where the former Indian skipper garnered 1,866 runs, averaging 74.64 against left-arm spinners.
In Pune, Mitchell Santner went through the gates of Virat Kohli to clean bowl him in the first innings, while trapping him LBW in the second. Kohli unusually employed a sweep shot, which he isn’t known for in the first innings, which certainly was one of his worst in recent times. He accumulated only 18 runs across two innings, as India went on to lose the game and the series.
Appearing on Cricbuzz, Karthik reserved harsh words for Kohli and thinks he needs to play domestic cricket on rank turners to learn to handle spinners better.
“What he needs to do, is probably go back to domestic cricket and focus on what needs to be done with the current rules of DRS. There is no doubt the left-arm spinners pose a big threat, Karthik said.
Karthik further pointed out Kohli’s unimpressive record in Tests since 2021, where he has garnered runs at an average of under 35 and scored only two hundreds. Kohli’s last century came in July 2023 against West Indies.
“We all know what he is capable of, this series was not meant to be. Like the fans have been saying, he has not done it for a long time and that we cannot run away from. We don’t want to sugarcoat it because we want to be as objective in assessing any player, any performance, at the moment Virat Kohli’s Test record in the last 2-3 years, has not been great against spin,” Karthik added.
Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma to skip compulsory training session
As per reports, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul are set to skip the Indian test team’s compulsory training session on October 30 and 31. This comes in the wake of India’s test series loss against New Zealand after losing back-to-back games. The team management, headed by Gautam Gambhir termed the session mandatory after a two-day rest ahead of third test in Mumbai.
However, the trio have joined their respective families and are not expected to turn up for the practice session for the game beginning on November 1. The Indian skipper, Rohit returned with knocks of 0 & 8 in the second test and has accumulated only 62 runs in the series.
On the other hand, Rahul was dropped from the XI after he came up with scores of 0 & 12 in the first test. In place of him, Shubmam Gill was slotted into the team after having recovered from neck stiffness.
