Former Australia cricketer Matthew Hayden feels star India batter Virat Kohli’s plan to counter Australian bowlers by batting outside of his crease is backfiring for him. Notably, Kohli was dismissed for 5 (12) on Day 1 of the first Test at Perth Stadium, Perth after he was left surprised by rising delivery by Josh Hazlewood and ended up edging him to Usman Khawaja at first slip.
“I think what his base or foundation solution to fast bowling units like Australia, exposing just bowling a 6 or even 7 stump line closer to the ball, which meant he actually came out of his crease and batted off stump. But the trouble is when you get yourself into that position, you’ve also got to maintain that you’re allowed to leave the ball. See, when you’re in that batting position and you’re closer to the ball, it actually means then you’re forcing yourself to play at every ball,” Hayden said on Star Sports.
Further speaking ahead, the former opening batter said Kohli backed himself into a corner with his strategy and the scoring runs got easy after a while as Rishabh Pant and Nitish Reddy showed.
“Test match cricket is about how well you leave the ball, not about how well you hit the ball. I mean, you saw the benefits of batting time through the middle. 50 overs this wicket today for India when Nitish Reddy was batting and Rishabh Pant was starting to look easy. You could tell the brow was less furrowed and they were starting to make advances on the game. That’s test match cricket. It doesn’t have to be over in a session. So to me, there are kind of, I like the strategy actually, definitely not critical of it that way, but you’ve backed yourself into a corner if you think I’ve got to hit every part of this now,” he added.
