Star Indian batter Virat Kohli had another forgettable outing against England in the second T20I on Saturday. The batter was once again dismissed for a low score continuing his dry-run in international cricket this year. Kohli was dismissed after scoring one run off three balls as he tried to hit the debutant Richard Gleeson over the extra cover region. The batter ended up edging the ball as it went high up in the air only to find Dawid Malan who completed an incredible catch running backwards around the short third-man region.
Former Indian batter Ajay Jadeja expressed his disappointment with Kohli’s form and said that the batter wouldn’t find a place in the T20 team if he were to pick it.
“Virat Kohli is a special player. If it wasn’t Virat Kohli, he wouldn’t have probably played Test cricket as well,” Jadeja said while speaking on Sony Sports.
“You look at the numbers and say ‘oh, over the last 8, 10 matches, he hasn’t scored a hundred’. But you don’t leave him out just because he hasn’t scored a hundred. You don’t leave him out because of what he is done in the past”, he added.
“It depends on whom you want to play. I feel you have a choice, it’s a tough one to make. If I had to pick a T20 side, Virat probably won’t be there,” Jadeja further said.
Kohli looked desperate to get going in the game yesterday as he usually doesn’t go for boundaries this early in his innings. Team India’s new strategy of playing with intent throughout the innings without having any quiet period seemed to get better of Kohli in the second T20I.
It should be noted that T20I is the only format where the star batter hasn’t lost his golden touch, and is continuously scoring runs in the format. The middle-order batter has scored 663 runs in the format since 2020 at an average of 44. The batter scored 299 runs at an average of 74 in 2021. He also won the ‘Player of the Series’ award in the 2021 T20I series against England.
Kohli has played three T20Is this year and has a half-century to his name in one of them.
