Nathan Lyon's sharp turner almost bamboozled Virat Kohli

While India went in with four pacers on a green seaming wicket in Perth, Australia opted to continue with their premier off-spinner, Nathan Lyon. The expectations on Lyon were quite high as India’s Hanuma Vihari extracted some great purchase off the track on Day 1. But, it wasn’t to be the case at the newly-built Perth Stadium as Lyon hardly had any assistance from the track for a majority of the day.

But, when he did get some turn early on, he almost ended up picking the prized wicket of Indian skipper Virat Kohli. This incident took place in the 18th over of the Indian innings. Virat Kohli got off to a start and was batting on 22. He was more than happy to leave a delivery pitched outside off-stump by Lyon. However, little did he know that the ball would turn back and come in miles.

How did that miss the top of off?

On an absolute peach of a delivery from Nathan, Virat’s luck favoured him mightily. The bounce at Perth saved the day for the Indian skipper as the off-spinner nearly rattled his woodwork. The ball went just a few centimetres over the off-stump leaving the Australian fielders feel very unfortunate.

Virat Kohli went on to dominate on the day and survived the testing period extremely well. He got through the tough phase, then went past his fifty. With vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane taking the bowlers on, he put his head down momentarily towards the end of the second day. He went on to add another 60 runs after this narrow escape and was unbeaten on 82 at the close of the day’s play.

Cricket Australia posted a video of this lucky survival and added a bit of sarcasm to it as well. “Yep, two types of leaves! Wait for the replay… #CloseMatters #AUSvIND | @GilletteAU,” their Twitter handle mentioned.

Here’s the video

Yep, two types of leaves! Wait for the replay… #CloseMatters #AUSvIND | @GilletteAU pic.twitter.com/dm99xtmuPV

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 15, 2018

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