India batting superstar Virat Kohli has hit back at the critics after facing criticism from several quarters for his failure with the bat in the first innings of the ongoing ICC World Test Championship Final (WTC Final) against Australia at the Oval, London.
Expectations were high from the former India skipper as he arrived in England on the back of a good home season and a solid campaign in the IPL. He scored two ODI tons before playing a sublime 186-run knock against Australia in the Ahmedabad Test. It was followed by a good outing in IPL 2023 where he scored a couple of centuries.
Team India desperately needed their former captain to stand up and deliver on day two of the WTC final after making a poor start with the bat. In reply to Australia’s huge first innings total of 469, India were reeling at 50 for 3. 21 runs later, Virat Kohli departed too after scoring only 14 to leave India reeling at 71 for 4. He edged a short delivery from Mitchell Starc behind the stumps where Steve Smith took a fine catch in the slip cordon.
Virat Kohli hits back at critics:
Following the dismissal, several experts criticized Virat Kohli for his technique. Former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar said that Kohli could have avoided the dismissal by playing on the backfoot while Sanjay Manjrekar opined that the batsman has been committing to the front foot no matter what in recent months.
He was also trolled on social media for his early dismissal. Not only that, several Twitter users slammed him for showing no regret after cameras showed him having his lunch in the dressing room right after the dismissal. And it looks like the criticism and the trolling have not gone down well with the star batsman. On Friday (June 9), Kohli posted a cryptic post on his Instagram story. While he did not mention anyone, his intentions were very clear.
He shared a photo of a tweet from American author Mark Manson with the words: “You must develop the ability to be disliked in order to free yourself from the prison of other peoples’ opinions.”
