The Three headcahes of Virat Kohli ahead of first Test match
Jul 20, 2016 at 1:48 PM
Indian team is gearing to take on the West Indies team in first off the four Test matches which will be played in Antigua. Indian team has an upper hand over the West Indies team as the home team is one of the low-rank team in this format and the visitors have an easy chance to crush them to win the series and to climb up in the ICC rankings. Surely one can expect a four-day finish to the first Test as none of the West Indies player looks threatening in the business.
Despite all these advantages still, there are some problems and weakness in the Indian camp which captain Kohli will face during the series.
The three worries for the captain are as follows:
The Pace bowling woes – Indian team has carried a total number of five pace bowlers with them for the tour. All the pacers were experimented and were given a chance in the two practise games ahead of the series but none of the pacers could really live up to the expectations and failed to make an impact on the batsman. Ishant Sharma, the most experienced bowler in the roster couldn’t even scalp a single wicket in both the games. Shami could just add two wickets to his name whereas the likes of Umesh Yadav, Shardul Thakur and Bhuvneshwar Kumar had to satisfy with just one wicket. West Indies players were easily picking up the Indian bowlers and hardly any Indian bowler was able to trouble the batsman. On the contrary, spinners made an early impact and were the strong force on the field. The West Indies batsmen surrendered in front of Indian spinners. Surely it is a big matter of concern for the Indian team as conditions here in West Indies are known to pacer friendly and if the pacers fail to deliver on the promise, then results can be different from what we are expecting.
The Opening pair headache – The first Test match will start in next 24 hours and the captain is yet to take a call on who will be the opening partner of Murali Vijay. Will it be Shikhar Dhawan or KL Rahul? Murali Vijay is a permanent contender for that one of two spots whereas there will be a race between KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan for that one vacant spot. Shikhar Dhawan had a lean patch with the bat in the last Test series against South Africa as he could just score 150 runs in four test matches he played. He batted with an average of 25.00 and could not even touch the 50 run mark even once. Looking at these numbers the captain will be quite worried and may find it difficult to give Dhawan another chance. Dhawan’s competitor KL Rahul has already scored 2 centuries in 5 Test matches he has played till now and this will surely force Kohli to consider KL Rahul for the much-deserved job.
The middle order tussle – This is another headache for the captain on his tour as there are two contenders for that number 3 spot. Looking at the current form in this format, Pujara has an upper hand over Rohit Sharma but still no one can deny the fact that Kohli may be in two thoughts over this as we have seen in past that Rohit Sharma has been given oodles of opportunities in the past which we might get to see here too. Surely this is a big headache for Virat Kohli as he has to do justice between talent and form. If he chooses talent over form than Rohit Sharma will be part of the team whereas, if the form is considered then Pujara will don the Indian jersey tomorrow.