The Border-Gavaskar Trophy is fast approaching, and there has been a lot of chaos regarding the events leading to it especially for India. They suffered a first-ever whitewash at home prior to flying to Australia and injuries further troubled their camp in Down Under. The first Test, in Perth, is a few days away and the visitors are already in disarray. Captain Rohit Sharma has pulled out of the tour because of personal reasons while his deputy, Shubman Gill is already out of contention after fracturing his thumb in a match simulation. On the other hand, the bowling attack might appear thin, with chief strike bowler Mohammad Shami also missing from the squad.
In such a scenario, much of the weight will be carried out by former captain Virat Kohli, who on paper has good numbers in Australia, but drops over the recent past. He performed badly against New Zealand in his own backyard, managing to score only 93 runs in six innings. Also, the last time he scored a century in test matches was against West Indies in the year 2023 which was sixteen months back.
Perhaps it helps Kohli that it might very well be his final tour to Australia and the ex-India skipper is of the opinion that it is going to be huge for the star batsman. As Ganguly spoke to RevSports, he claimed that the former Captain of India will relish the conditions in Australia and afagy will deliver in the five-match series as she has nothing to prove herself.
“He is a champion batter. And he has had success in Australia in the past. He scored four hundred in 2014, scored a hundred in 2018 as well. He will want to make this series count, and he will also know that this could be the last time he is coming to Australia to play Test series. Therefore, this is a huge series for Kohli, in every way, this is a huge series,” Ganguly shared with RevSports.
“I wouldn’t want to read too much because of the New Zealand series. The surfaces were not conducive to good batting. There will be good surfaces in Australia, so he will relish it. I am supporting Virat to perform in this series in Australia,” he continued.
In the second tour game against Australia A, Ganguly was particularly impressed by Dhruv Jurel’s performance. As most of the India A batters failed, the keeper batter scored two fifties and was also the highest scorer in the match played by the visitors, who lost the match by six wickets.
“He is a good young player. He looked good in the A game. Solid defensive technique. I think he will be included in the first Test in the Batting Line Up as a middle-order batsman,” he remarked.
Comments are closed.