With Virat Kohli falling for a second consecutive duck with his four-ball duck in the second ODI against Australia at Adelaide Oval on Thursday, the 36-year-old Indian batting star once again finds himself in the spotlight. With Kohli having retired from the T20 as well Test format, the Indian batsman now only plays in the ODI format and Thursday was also the first time that he fell without scoring in back to back ODIs after his eight- ball duck in the first ODI at Perth. Former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri believes Virat Kohli has to get some form ‘pretty quickly’ and it’s not going to be easy.
“He’ll have to get some form pretty quickly. The competition for places is such in India in white-ball cricket, no one is going to relax, whether it’s Virat or Rohit or anyone in the team. It’s not going to be easy, there is competition. He missed out again today, he was a little tentative with his footwork. It doesn’t happen often, his record in one-day cricket is phenomenal, so for him to get two ducks on the trot, he’ll be disappointed.” Shastri said while commentating on Fox Sports during the second ODI.
Kohli, who is the third highest run-getter in ODI format in the world with his tally of 14,181 runs, had scored 975 runs at an average of 65.00 at the Adelaide Oval across formats. This includes his five centuries too at the venue. In ODI cricket, Kohli has smashed two centuries at the venue with the first ODI century at the venue coming in the 2015 World Cup match against Pakistan, where he scored 126 runs off 107 balls. Kohli’s second ODI century at the venue came in 2019 when he scored 104 runs off 112 runs against Australia in the second match of the three-match series. Like Kohli, former Indian captain Rohit Sharma too had retired from T20 format as well Tests and the Australia series is Sharma’s first international series since March. Sharma played a 97-ball knock of 73 runs in India’s two-wicket loss at Adelaide Oval on Thursday. Earlier last week, Shastri had talked about both Kohli and Sharma’s comeback to international cricket after such a long gap. “When you come back from a long layoff, you are obviously going to be rusty. It’s not easy for any overseas team to land in Australia, say, two days prior to a game in Perth and adjust to those conditions straight away, especially when you have that extra bounce and against quality fast bowlers. But I think only time will tell. They’ll go to Adelaide, they have some time off to get into the nets, get their minds sorted and get back into action. So I’m in no hurry to judge, but it’s when you come back at that age, after some time, it’s about how much you’re enjoying the sport and how much hunger is there and passion is left in you to play the game. So if you tick the boxes in two out of those three, especially the enjoyment part of it, then you can give them both time because they’ve got class, they’ve got experience and a little bit of time will sort things out. But I’d rather wait than jump and judge immediately.” Shastri had told The ICC Review.
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