Virat Kohli’s decision to demote himself down the batting order in order to make way for KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan in the playing XI for the first ODI against Australia has put him on the receiving end of criticism from all-around. Virat’s experiment backfired on him as he failed to perform at the number 4 position.
While both the cricketers Shikhar Dhawan(74) and KL Rahul (47) performed really well, as they continued with their brilliant form. But the Indian skipper, Virat Kohli failed to leave a mark with his performance. He was dismissed only after scoring 6 as India were all out for only 255.
During Australia’s innings, the Australian skipper, Aaron Finch, and David Warner, both the Australian cricketers smashed the Indian bowlers and successfully chased the target of 255 runs.
After the match, when Virat Kohli attended the post-match presentation ceremony, Sanjay Manjrekar asked him about his poor record at number four. To which the Indian skipper said that the plans of preparing KL Rahul to bat at number 4 have been going around for long. Besides this, Virat Kohli also accepted that he has failed to perform at the number of instances when he was asked to bat at number 4.
Furthermore, he concluded by saying that he is allowed to experiment a bit to test the batting line-up. He said:
“We’ve had this discussion many times in the past as well, due to the way KL has been batting. We’ve tried to fit him into the team. Having said that, it hasn’t gone our way when I have batted at no.4, so we have to see how it goes. At the same time, it’s about giving opportunities to the other guys. People need not panic for just this one game. I think I am allowed to experiment a bit,”
