"There is no harm in playing and missing" - Sunil Gavaskar's advice to Virat Kohli
Former captain and batting legend Sunil Gavaskar has offered a simple piece of advice to Virat Kohli to recover from his poor form. Gavaskar said the skipper should be ready to "play and miss" deliveries by keeping the bat close to his body instead of going after them.
Virat Kohli has had a dismal time with the bat in England so far. He has scored just 124 runs from five innings - an average of 24.80 - with his only half-century coming in arguably the easiest of conditions at Headingley in the 2nd innings. All five of his dismissals have come through edges in the 4th-5th stump channel, with the English pacers sticking to their "simple plan" of angling it away from the off-stump.
"See how far from the body the bat is, that's what's getting him into trouble. He (Virat Kohli) is reaching out. So it's hard hands stuff that is getting into trouble. I don't think standing outside the crease is a worry. If you play closer to your body, you play and miss it. There is no harm in playing and missing it," Sunil Gavaskar told Sony Sports.
Gavaskar added that with his wealth of experience, Virat Kohli doesn't require too many changes, but just more nous in his shot selection.
"I think it's the shot selection. You have got to keep it simple. He has got 8000 runs, probably the last 6,500 runs he has got standing outside the crease. So I don't think he needs to make too many changes. I think it's just the shot selection," he added.
"You still had a day to go" - Sunil Gavaskar unhappy with Virat Kohli and Pujara's haste for runs
Sunil Gavaskar also reproached "intent" talks from the Indian dressing room along with Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara's plan to go for runs instead of biding their time on Day 4. He said that in their effort to do so, they went for deliveries which should have been left alone and consequently lost their wickets.
"At the moment, we're talking about intent. There is 'intent' question against Pujara. Here it seems the intent is to get runs. It means there are deliveries you're playing when you should be leaving those. So it's basically again a question of shot selection."
"You don't have to play at those deliveries. If you leave those deliveries, it's not going to matter. You still had a day to go and you were 140 runs behind the England team. If you have a look, these are deliveries on the 4th stump, there are no complaints. But there are deliveries at the 5th, 6th stump. These are deliveries he should not be playing," concluded Sunil Gavaskar.
Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara, after batting brilliantly for their 99-run partnership on Day 3, succumbed against the second new ball within six overs on Saturday. Their wickets triggered a massive collapse that culminated in an innings and 76-run defeat for India. The fourth Test will be played from September 2 at The Oval.