Virat Kohli was looking uncomfortable against spin in Pune against New Zealand in the second test match of the three match series, where team India lost their first match in Bengaluru’s M chinnaswamy stadium.
Kohli has rarely had such a bad situation against spin bowlers in his career, which has been going on for the last few years. Virat Kohli once again became fall prey of spin bowler in the Pune Test against New Zealand.
In the process of playing a sweep shot on a full toss of left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner, Kohli completely missed the line and the ball went straight to stumps. Kohli’s innings ended at 1 run. He faced 9 balls. After this, Kohli sat on his knees for a while and then returned to the pavilion with heavy steps. Kohli had given signs of returning to form by scoring 70 runs in the second innings of the Bangalore Test. However, he could not maintain this sequence in Pune. In Bengaluru too, he was dismissed by Glenn Phillips.
Kohli’s struggle against spin now seems to be becoming a canker. Especially they are not able to play spin bowlers on Asian pitches. This is his 21st dismissal against spin bowlers in Asia since 2021. Kohli, who has scored more than 9000 runs in Test cricket, has struggled to score runs against spin in the last 3 years. Especially left-arm spinners have now become their weakness. Kohli has managed to score only 259 runs against the left-arm spinner in 21 Test innings since 2021. In this, his average is 28. In these three years, Kohli has lost his wicket 10 times against left-arm spinners so far.
Overall, Kohli has managed to score 606 runs against spin bowlers in Asian conditions in this period, with an average of 28.85 – well below the high standards set in his career. When India was struggling to recover from New Zealand’s first innings score of 259, Kohli’s early dismissal put the team in a difficult position. By lunch on the second day, India’s score was 107/7 and after that the Indian team was stacked on 156 runs.