It was an interesting brief stay of 12 balls for Virat Kohli. He had walked in rather quickly at the fall of Devdutt Padikkal as is his wont. And had to wait for an over to play a ball. And that proved rather fascinating.
He took guard six inches outside the crease to Josh Hazlewood and the drama began. He moved forward first ball to stab it to the off side, ran his fingers through the helmet grill and refocussed.
The next ball tailed in a touch more and Kohli’s awkward stab led to a leading edge to the off side. Another fullish ball was again stabbed away, before one cut in to ram into his thigh pad. And the final ball of the over buzzed past the outside edge.
The ploy to stand out was interesting. He can usually do it in England to negate the swing, forcing the bowlers to alter the length. Here the Perth pitch did not have many devils in it.
A usual first-day Australian pitch with a touch of movement and as the sun began to come out, some good bounce. The day hadn’t started with that kind of bounce, but it had begun to pick up a touch.
KL Rahul had comfortably negated the bounce even while taking a big forward stride to snuff out the balls. Kohli had chosen to stand out, and his initial movements weren’t that large. But essentially he was looking to get a bit on the front foot and negotiate the balls from there.
It didn’t quite work out as he had perhaps hoped as he wasn’t quite middling much. Then came a ball from Pat Cummins, on good length and straight. Kohli eased forward to punch-drive it uppishly but well to the right of the bowler and to the left of Rahul. Cummins pursed his lips, as he walked away.
Then came Hazlewood. After three quiet overs, he had shifted to the pavilion end. What he got more from here was that extra bounce. He got one to shape away from Kohli before he made an interesting little move.
He stood at the top of his run up, signalling to Mitch Marsh who was at midwicket to move. Unsure where to, Mitch shuffled to his right, but was redirected to come closer towards what could be said short midwicket. All this in the vision of Kohli, of course.
The next ball was the ball – a brute of a lifter from back of length outside off. Kohli had pressed a touch forward, left foot pressing into the turf when he realised the direction of the ball and the accompanying danger.
He tried to retreat his foot back, tried to get some semblance of balance back even as he tried to withdraw his bat away from the line of trouble. But he couldn’t and the ball sailed at a comfortable height and pace to Usman Khawaja at first slip. As he walked away, Kohli would gesture with his right hand, how the ball bounced up at him.
So, the first round to Australia and Hazlewood. Kohli has revealed his card: stand outside the crease a touch, and try to get forward as much as possible and negotiate the ball from there. It hasn’t worked in Perth in the first innings. What will the second round bring in?
