Kohli hints at giving KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant: The Indian team management looks set to give more chances to both the batsmen.
India captain Virat Kohli was wax lyrical about his bowlers after their spirited performance in the first T20I of the ongoing Australia’s tour of India at Visakhapatnam. Defending a paltry total of 127 runs, the Indian bowlers were exceptional in their effort in taking the game till the last ball.
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Having scored 67-2 at the halfway mark, Australia needed 60 runs from 60 balls with eight wickets in hand. The equation was reduced to needing 29 runs in five overs with seven wickets remaining.
In the 18th and 19th over, debutant Mayank Markande and death overs specialist Jasprit Bumrah gave away only five and two runs respectively. The latter dismissing Peter Handscomb and Nathan Coulter-Nile in consecutive deliveries had all but changed the course of the game.
“Very pleased with the bowling effort”
Speaking during the post-match presentation ceremony, Kohli admitted being pleased with the bowling effort. “Very pleased with the bowling effort, never thought we’d be in this situation but Bumrah can do wonders, even Mayank bowled brilliantly, I thought,” Kohli said.
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The 30-year old cricketer also confessed that the Indian batsmen didn’t bat well after being put in to bat by the opposition captain. “In the first innings, we were not up to scratch. The wicket was decent enough till the 15th over. We didn’t bat really well,” Kohli was quoted as saying.
Other hand handing a debut to Markande, India also surprised one and all by playing opening batsman Lokesh Rahul ahead of Shikhar Dhawan. While the 26-year old batsman marked his comeback by scoring his fifth T20I half-century, he would be wanting to score many more runs to press his case for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.
“We want to give more game-time to Rahul and Pant”
Talking of the World Cup, Kohli added that the team management wants to more game-time to Rahul and wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant. “We want to give more game-time to Rahul and Pant to figure out what we need to do in the World Cup.
“I think he [Rahul] played a really good knock, we had a good partnership. 150 would have been a winning score the way the pitch played. Australia deserved to win as they played better than us,” Kohli concluded.
