Centurion: Team India’s Test captain Virat Kohli will be highly disappointed himself after failing to convert the start in the first Test against South Africa on Boxing Day at the SuperSport Park in Centurion.
For the last couple of years, Kohli is probably going through the worst phase of his professional career. There have been numerous occasions in the longest format when he did all the hard work early on in his innings but couldn’t make it count and threw away his wicket playing a rather careless shot.
Looking back at his dismissal, Bangar felt Kohli relies a lot on his front foot game and needs to improve his batting in the back foot especially when playing against a quicker attack like Australia or South Africa or in seaming conditions like in England and New Zealand.
“Yes it could be a mental error for Kohli at least as far as the execution part, at least as far as him going after that wide half-volley is concerned,” Bangar told Star Sports.
“But for me he relies a lot on driving the ball and against quicker attacks and in seaming conditions, you require one more game. You can’t only rely on front foot shot. Because if he continues to do that, bowlers will continue to drag him wider and wider and hope that they find the outside edge.”
The same happened on Day 1 of the Boxing Day Test against South Africa at Centurion’s Super Sport Park. Coming to bat at No.4 after losing Mayank Agarwal and Cheteshwar Pujara on two successive deliveries, Kohli looked well set with his knock of 35 before he fell while chasing after a wide delivery from Lungi Ngidi in the second session. Kohli scored 35 runs during his 94-ball vigil as India dominated day 1 of the 1st Test.
Bangar further added that Virat Kohli needs to develop a response on the back foot to find success on these wickets.
“So it will be worth for Virat to give a thought of also developing some sort of a response on the the backfoot as well. He now only seems to be preoccupied in scoring on the front foot,” the former all-rounder added.
