Virat Kohli‘s first stint in the match simulation at WACA lasted only 15-20 minutes, saw him scoring just 15 runs before Mukesh Kumar sent him packing. Kohli went in the middle after KL Rahul left the field due to an elbow injury. India’s second opening batter Yashasvi Jaiswal also departed early, leaving Kohli and Shubman Gill in the middle. While Kohli looked keen to unleash some of his trademark drives, he wasn’t always successful due to the bounce the WACA pitch managed to produce from most spots.
Kohli came up against a string of bowlers like Mukesh Kumar, Prasidh Krishna, Navdeep Saini and Nitish Kumar Reddy. Of the lot Mukesh was reportedly the biggest challenge for Kohli, as per Cricbuzz. Mukesh got the ball to skid and made life difficult for Kohli. Once, the ball even kissed the bottom of Virat’s bat and landed on the ground right in front of the slip cordon.
Kohli did produce some brilliant coverdrives but eventually departed to Mukesh while trying to connect a 5th stump delivery. Virat went to the nets to do some practice on his batting with the help of throwdown specialists.
He returned to the middle again, looking in a better rhythm this time. Be it the judgement of line and length or hand-eye coordination, Kohli aced the challenge before leaving the field after scoring 30 runs without losing his wicket.
The likes of Jaiswal, Gill and Rishabh Pant also continued to switch between simulation game and nets practice. After getting ample practice in the middle, Kohli was found joking around with Pant and Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah, keeping the atmosphere chill ahead of the start of the series.
Gill, meanwhile, injured his thumb during the simulation game and is a major doubt for the Perth Test. With Rohit Sharma also likely to miss the Perth encounter, the onus does fall on Virat to lead India’s batting unit, being the senior-most member of the team.
The Perth Test could see Dhruv Jurel being slotted into the side as a pure batter while all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy is expected to make his debut.