The Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia is starting on February 9. This series of four Test matches is very important for both the teams. To reach the final of the World Test Championship, India will have to win this series at any cost. Virat Kohli’s bat is essential for India to win this series.
Virat has regained his old form in T20Is and ODIs and is scoring runs consistently. He can also complete his 50 centuries in ODIs soon, but Kohli is yet to return to his rhythm in Tests. He has not been able to score a century in the longest format of cricket since November 2019.
Virat has scored 1682 runs in 20 Tests against Australia at an average of 48.05. It consists of seven centuries. However, in the last few matches, Virat has struggled against spin bowlers and this is a matter of concern for him.
Irfan Pathan has also expressed concern over this. He said in a conversation with a sports channel that in the Border-Gavaskar Test series, Kohli would like to make many changes in his batting and his way of playing spin bowlers is one of them.
Irfan said “So, one thing he will keep in his mind is that he is going to face Lyon as well as Agar’s spin. Because he is struggling especially against spin and I think that’s one thing What he can do personally is try and be a bit more aggressive, because I think his strike rate against spin has gone down as well.”
Irfan Pathan further said “I know we are talking about Test cricket here but sometimes he should be a little more aggressive against spin, it can make you better in that match when you are really Nathan Facing guys like Lyon who brings his spin, extra bounce and he takes the ball away from right-handed batsmen as well. So, I think he should keep that in mind.”
India’s Test squad for the first two Tests against Australia :-
Rohit Sharma (captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wicketkeeper), Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Akshar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav