Virat Kohli should take clues from Rohit Sharma regarding leaving the balls outside the off-stump: Manoj Tiwary

The Day 2 of the last Test of the four-match series between India and England at Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium witnessed another disappointing outing for Indian skipper Virat Kohli. He went back to the pavilion after scoring a duck. In the Test series thus far, Virat has failed to impress with the willow as he has registered scores of 11, 72, 0, 62, 27 and 0 across six innings. 

Virat’s current form has raised some major concerns in the cricket fraternity. The Indian skipper has also failed to convert the good starts into a century for over a year now. When asked about the same, India’s veteran batsman Manoj Tiwary reckoned that not registering a big score is not a major concern as both India and England are playing in tough conditions which aren’t offering any assistance to the batsmen.

“We all should accept the fact that the series is happening in very tough conditions. If we leave the first two days of the first Test when England batted in Chennai, the ball is constantly turning. The low scores are there due to the tough batting conditions and the conversion is not happening because in challenging situations, a batsman is not set after scoring 50 runs also.” Manoj Tiwary told Cricbuzz. 

Virat Kohli should’ve left the ball, opines Manoj Tiwary

However, speaking about Virat’s dismissal against Ben Stokes, Manoj asserted that the former should have left that ball and needs to work on his off-stump batting techniques. Further, the veteran opined that Rohit Sharma, who played a sublime knock of 49 runs, perfectly displayed the art of leaving good balls and Virat Kohli needs to learn the same from the opening batsman. 

“But from what I have seen today, Virat should have left that ball. One should always remember the advice of batting great Sunil Gavaskar as he says that’s the batsman whether batting in the top or the middle order should always give at least half-hour to themselves to get settled on the pitch. You should know how to leave the balls. Today Rohit Sharma showed us the art of leaving the balls. 

“You can leave balls when you are confident about where your off-stump is. Everyone knows that sometimes there are questions about Virat Kohli’s batting as he gets confused about where his off-stump is. When you world’s number one batsman then you sometimes believe that you will be able to play every ball. But the way this ball bounced, Virat should have left it. Virat should take clues from Rohit Sharma regarding leaving the balls which are outside the off-stump,” Manoj Tiwary concluded.