Sanjay Manjrekar took Virat Kohli to task, said he failed to find a solution to this weakness:

Sanjay Manjrekar took Virat Kohli to task, said he failed to find a solution to this weakness

Sport

Desk 2024-12-06 20:39:00

Adelaide: Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar believes that veteran batsman Virat Kohli's 'stubbornness' in not finding a way to overcome his weakness outside the off stump has led to his batting average dropping from 50 to 48.13. Kohli had ended his long century drought in the traditional format of the game by scoring a century in the opening Test played in Perth in the Border-Gavaskar series. However, he could not maintain his rhythm in the second Test which started at the Adelaide Oval on Friday, and was dismissed for seven runs.

Virat was caught by Starc in Adelaide

Kohli stuck his bat on a ball from left-arm fast bowler Mitchell Starc that bounced outside the off stump and was caught by Steve Smith in the slip. After Kohli's dismissal, Manjrekar wrote on Twitter, 'An important reason for Virat's average now reaching around 48 is his weakness outside the off stump. What is even more important is that he is adamant on not adopting any other method to deal with it.'

Virat's Test average is below 50 since 2022

Till a few years ago, Kohli's average in Tests was around 54-55 but due to failure to play big innings for a long time, his average fell below 50 in 2022. Before the Australia tour, Kohli had scored just 93 runs at an average of 15.50 in the three-match home series against New Zealand.

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