Former Australia captain Michael Clarke heavily criticized the Pat Cummins-led side for allowing an out-of-form Virat Kohli to regain his mojo and slam a century at the Optus Stadium in Perth. The India star batter came to the series after failing to cross the 100-run mark in 3-match New Zealand Test series.
However, despite his dismal Test form, Kohli batted brilliantly against Australia and went on to score his 30th Test century and 81st international ton. Clarke believes that the century in Perth will boost Kohli’s confidence for the remainder of the series.
“Yeah, you couldn’t ask for a better second innings, really. How he come to the crease, minimal pressure on him, he wasn’t scoring as many runs as he would like, sort of walk out like that, team dominating the situation. He played the way we know Virat can play though,” Clarke told ESPN.
So what he did was he was sharp, he was switched on because he knew he needed some runs for his own confidence. So he did the hard work early, and then he earned the right to play his natural game. And by the end of his innings, it was, everyone was sitting there saying, Virat’s back, and there’s no doubt about it,” Clarke added.
Clarke also blasted the Baggy Greens for allowing Kohli to settle early in the series and added that the hosts might pay for seemingly letting Kohli get back to his best.
“Now, as I mentioned before, a ball was bowled this series. The best players, you don’t want them on top at the start of the series. You want them to have to work their backside off to get into the series. And if they score 100 by Test match three or four, you sort of accept that because they’re so good. But to allow him to get 100 in that first test, we’ve got some work to do now to keep him down because he’s full of confidence. He’s got that strut back. And that’s when he’s at his best. That’s why he’s been the best player in the world for such a long period of time,” Clarke concluded.
It will be interesting to see if Kohli can continue to bat brilliantly in the second Test of the Border-Gavaskar series which is set to be played in Adelaide from December 6.
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