London: Former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar explained why Virat Kohli is struggling with the bat in the ongoing Test series against England at the Lord’s and advised him to play with his own method. Kohli has been struggling with his form of late and this England series is no different as the Indian skipper failing to capitalise on the starts.
While his scores against New Zealand in the World Test Championship final read 44 and 13, Kohli could add only 42 and 20 in the ongoing encounter against England. The right-hander was out for a duck in the only chance he could bat in the first Test against England.
“That method has been successful for him. He has got 8,000 Test runs with that back and across movement. But he is playing at deliveries way outside off stump and a little too early in the innings,” Gavaskar said. The former Indian skipper also spoke about Kohli’s intent.
“This time around, the foot is somewhere else, the bat is somewhere else, which means that he hasn’t really played well. It could be about this much-talked-about word intent but in a five-day game, every batsman goes in to score runs. It’s the method that differs,” added the first man on earth to score 10,000 Test runs.
In the first innings, Kohli didn’t perform well with the bat, scoring 42 off 103 balls. But in the second, Kohli was a lot more positive in his approach, getting to 20 off 31 balls. Gavaskar reckoned the India captain could have played himself in a little more, as that is what a Test match is all about.
“When you talk about this ‘trying to take this attack to the opposition’ approach, and if that is what intent is, it can get you into trouble like we saw. I think every batsman should be left alone to find his own method. This is a Test match. In ODI and T20I, it’s a completely different situation, but over here, what they need to look into is get themselves in and try to play in the old-fashioned V. Play only when you have fought through,” he added.
