Former South African player Jonty Rhodes said that Indian skipper can’t be expected to sparkle every time. In fact, Virat Kohli has been the lone warrior of India as the team has relied heavily on his shoulders.
Virat Kohli has scored 526 runs in the last five Test matches against South Africa and England. Meanwhile, the rest of top five batsmen have managed a mere 505 runs.
Virat Kohli has been the lone warrior.
Therefore, Kohli has averaged 52.6 whereas no other Indian batsman has crossed an average of 20 in the last five Tests. Thus, the numbers tell us a complete story that why India has been a one-man army.
“There is nothing like a loss being a catalyst. It just takes one person to spark sometimes,” Rhodes told India Today. “But the key is not expecting Virat Kohli to be the spark all the time. The key I believe is it coming from somebody else,” Jonty Rhodes added.
Meanwhile, India was criticised when they went unprepared on the South African tour. However, the visitors spent a lot of time in England before the first Test match at Edgbaston. Thus, they had time to get used to the England conditions.
“When India went to South Africa there was a lot of criticism of not enough preparation. But you can’t point fingers at them this time in the UK. They have been there for quite a while. They have switched from white ball to red ball and you have some different players with a change in formats. But you have enough guys who have spent time there which should have helped them,” Rhodes said.
On the other hand, Rhodes who was regarded as the best fielder in the world also spoke about India’s woeful slip catching. India hasn’t been a consistent slip cordon and has fluffed many catches in the recent past.
“Slip catches requires confidence in the players around you. India needs to settle on two or three slip catchers all the time. We looked at England who had four slip fielders all close to each other. They didn’t catch everything but on the whole, they were good”.
The third Test match gets underway at Trent Bridge tomorrow.
