Sourav Ganguly defends Virat Kohli's twin failure at Pune

Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly has come out in support of Indian captain Virat Kohli. Kohli had been on a rampaging form coming into the 4 match Test series against Australia. However, when the big test beckoned in the first Test at Pune, Kohli suffered a rare failure with the bat. He was dismissed on a duck after almost two years in Test cricket. He was caught in the slips on a duck on the second ball that he faced in the innings.

The second innings saw him leave a straighter delivery from Steve O’Keefe that shattered his woodwork. Many blamed that the Indian skipper should have shouldered more responsibly and perhaps could have saved India from an embarrassing defeat such as that. Now, Ganguly has rightly cited that even Kohli is a human being and such days are bound to come.

Winning and losing are a part and parcel of the game and even the biggest of the players have bad days at the office. He noted that the Aussies must have seen footages of English seamers bowling an outside off channel to Kohli and hence stuck to their lines against him. However, he remarked that the failure definitely not take anything away from Kohli.

As per the quotes in India Today, Sourav Ganguly said, “Kohli is human and he had to fail one day. He failed in both innings in Pune. I think he played a little bit of a loose shot in the first innings outside the off stump but the Australians bowled him there.”

“They must have seen Stuart Broad and James Anderson bowling to him in England outside the off stump. In the second innings, I think the game was already over. A 441-run target was a humongous task. Kohli will come back because he is a class act.  His record against Australia is unreal,” he added further.

Adding a bit more to his point, he pointed out how Virat had singlehandedly tormented the Aussies with his batting when India toured Australia last time around. Albeit they lost the Test series, Kohli’s form was surreal. He had finished with 692 runs on the tour with 4 hundreds to his name.

“To watch those four back-to-back Test match hundreds against Australia in Australia (was surreal). I have not seen even Sachin Tendulkar do that. Getting four Test match hundreds in every venue on your second trip to Australia is a special special effort,” Ganguly conceded.