Since India’s usual number three Shubman Gill had to sit out of this match with a stiff neck, Virat Kohli walked out in to bat in that position after eight years. However, he perised for a nine-ball duck.
After stumps on Day 2, India captain Rohit Sharma said it was Kohli’s decision to bat in that position. “The experienced players are the ones who have to take that extra responsibility. It is a good sign. This time, it was Virat. He was the one who was ready to do that. We asked him whether he can bat at number three,” Rohit revealed.
“We wanted to give Sarfraz the position that he usually bats four, five, six maybe. But we didn’t want to change Rishabh and KL (Rahul). Hence, Sarfraz went at four and Virat batted at three,” he said.
Rohit praised Henry and O’Rourke for troubling the Indian batters throughout the first innings.
“They play in these types of conditions back home. They know exactly what to do when the conditions are like that. Their bowlers actually challenged our batters a lot.
They made us play every second or third ball. That is what you want to do as a bowling unit. We didn’t respond to that challenge.” Asked what would be the way back for India, having already conceded a lead of 134 runs, Rohit said, “I think for us to stay in the game, we have got to not let them get away with way too many runs. They are at 180, that is about 140 runs (lead).
“The wicket seems to be settling down a little bit and we expect the pitch to play like that. We have got a bat really big in the second inning and try and see if we can make a game out of that,” he signed off.
