In the first test of the all-important World Test Championship (WTC) Final against Australia, Virat Kohli was out after making just 14 runs off 31 balls. With Australia’s scary first innings score of 469, Kohli was one of India’s most important batters. He looked good, passing the ball outside and protecting it with a rock-solid defense from the front foot. Everything was going well until Mitchell Starc threw that one ball in the 19th inning.
Starc threw a short ball and then rolled his fingers over to bowl a quick off-cutter. Kohli was already moving forward when the bounce of the ball caught him off guard. The India fans were upset by that delivery, and they then made fun of Virat for his bad batting. But some people thought it was too good of a speech. The Indian great and broadcaster Sunil Gavaskar was asked by a Star Sports host how he would play a ball like that.
Gavaskar looked at Kohli’s bad form and said that the fact that he played every ball on his front foot was what caused him to lose. Gavaskar said, “Off the backfoot.” He was talking about how Kohli could have played that ball from Starc.
“You could look again. Most hitters are on the front foot today because there are only two bouncers per over. This means they can’t get on their back feet and gain an extra yard, which they could have done if they had dropped their arms. Yes, it was a hard ball because he was so focused on the front foot that he couldn’t pull his bat back in time. If he had been in a bad position.
Gavaskar also said, “It looked like an unplayable ball, but if he had been on the backfoot, he could have dropped his wrists.”
India’s score is 151 for 5, and Ajinkya Rahane (29) and KS Bharat (5) are at the bat. They are still 318 runs behind. India’s top three batsmen, Rohit Sharma (15), Shubman Gill (14), and Cheteshwar Pujara (14), all made low scores and went back. Earlier, Travis Head and Steve Smith each scored a hundred, which helped Australia score 469 runs in the first innings after they were asked to bat first.
