The former chief selector of Indian cricket, Chetan Sharma, has displayed his full support to the veteran batter of the Blue Brigade and the former captain of the side, Virat Kohli, for the last two Tests of the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2024-25 in Melbourne and Sydney, as he made a huge demand for the Delhi-born.
Virat Kohli came into the series down under on the back of his poor touch at home against New Zealand with the help of 93 runs in six innings at an average of 15.50 with the help of just one half-century. It wasn’t a healthy start for the right-handed batter in the first innings of the Perth Test at the Optus Stadium.
For a long time, the batter was struggling against the driving delivery, which pushed him to be ready on the back foot. But the rising delivery from Josh Hazlewood got a feather of an edge from the batter into the hands of the wicket-keeper, Alex Carey. But he ensured a different knock in the second innings when the situation of the fixture was different.
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Virat Kohli celebrated his 30th century in the red-ball format, having remained unbeaten on 100, with the help of eight boundaries and two over boundaries with a strike rate of nearly 70. The expectation was to see him extending the purple patch and keep on scoring runs for the rest of the series.
“Let’s hope Virat Kohli scores two more centuries”- Chetan Sharma
But it didn’t move smoothly. The 37-year-old again struggled badly in the second day-night affair at the Adelaide Oval. In the first innings of the encounter, he wasn’t convinced whether to play the short ball from Mitchell Starc before ending up getting an outside edge into the hands of Steve Smith at the slip corridor.
In the second innings, Virat Kohli started well but couldn’t resist playing the drive as he leaned forward to get an outside edge into the hands of the keeper against Scot Boland. The pressure was getting high, with just three centuries coming off his blade in the last five years in the five-day format.
The action, then, moved to the third Test at the Gabba in Brisbane. The number four batter walked early in the middle with the fall of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill. He left the first few deliveries outside the off-stump, but he became greedy for the Hazlewood ball and got an outside edge looking to drive the ball.
His three low scores dropped his Test average in Australia to 50, as he now has smacked 1478 runs in 30 innings at an average of 50.96 and a strike rate of 53.86 with the help of seven centuries and four half-centuries with the best score of 169 at the MCG. Apart from a century in Perth, he has collected only 26 runs in four innings, which hasn’t met the predicted expectation from the batter.
Chetan Sharman, during an interaction with ANI, has reckoned that the recent difficulties of the batter are just temporary setbacks, highlighting his significant contribution besides showing huge confidence in the batter in the coming games.
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“Virat Kohli is a player who has achieved so much for us, which raises our expectations. I am confident he will perform well. Let’s hope he scores two more centuries in the next two matches. I had predicted the series that he would score three centuries in Australia.” Sharma expressed.
In the ongoing third cycle of the World Test Championship (WTC) in 2023-25, the experienced batter has collected 687 runs in 12 games at an average of 36.15 with two centuries and three half-centuries.