Australia pacer Josh Hazlewood isn’t making a fuss over the dropped catch of Virat Kohli by Mitchell Marsh which was a significant moment in the IND vs AUS match.
India kick-started World Cup 2023 with a 6-wicket win over Australia in Chennai by chasing down the target of 200 runs in 41.2 overs.
India lost three early wickets – Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, and Shreyas Iyer, all gone for ducks – and were 2/3 in 2 overs, before Virat Kohli (85) and KL Rahul (97*) resurrected the innings with their partnership of 165 runs which put India in a winning position.
Australia also had a chance to push India further on the backfoot when Virat Kohli top-edged a bouncer from Hazlewood. Wicket-keeper Alex Carey and Mitchell Marsh, who was standing at mid-wicket., both ran in; Marsh even got to the ball but couldn’t get his hands on it and spilled the catch. Kohli was batting on 12 runs then and went on to make 85 runs.
Hazlewood, though, has admitted that dropped catches are part of the game.
“It was quite early obviously when that catch was dropped but we still felt that new ball was doing enough. Yeah, he dropped a catch, it’s one of those things that happens, and everyone’s training hard and working hard off the field. So yeah, we will continue on,” the lanky pacer said.
“I didn’t think Carey could get there. I think it was Mitch’s catch and Carey probably got quite close in the end so it might have just put Mitch off.”
Virat Kohli told me to play like Test cricket: KL Rahul
Coming in at 2/3 in just the third over, Rahul looked even more assured than Kohli. Rahul, who finished the game with a six but remained just three runs short of a century, said that Kohli told him to bat like he does in Test cricket, especially because there was more pressure on surviving against the new ball than scoring.
“Virat said there’s big help in the wicket, and [we] just have to play proper shots and play like it’s Test cricket for some time and see where it goes. That was mostly the plan, and happy that we could do the job for the team,” Rahul revealed.
