'Dominance From Virat Kohli Was Not Seen': Former Indian Cricketer Doubts Star Indian Batter's Form

Photo : AP
Former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra has said that there might be some pressure on India skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli ahead of the New Zealand Tests since the latest Test series against Bangladesh wasn't up to their mark. He added that the duo delivered underwhelming performances and that might keep them under pressure ahead of New Zealand Tests.
India will face New Zealand in three Tests, starting from October 16 in Bengaluru. The next two Tests will be played in Pune and Mumbai from October 24 and November 1.
Rohit and Kohli will be crucial to India's chances of winning the series against New Zealand and also against Australia, where their experience will come handy.
"Is there slight pressure on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli because the last Test series was extremely ordinary according to their standards? The next Test series is the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, so you want to score runs and move forward," Chopra said while speaking on his YouTube channel.
"Although Virat Kohli scored runs in the last innings, when we talk about the Kanpur Test, but the flow wasn't seen. The dominance, silken touch and rhythm you expect from Virat Kohli wasn't seen," Chopra said.
Chopra added that the lack of consistent cricketing action might be hampering with Kohli's touch. The latter appeared in the Bangladesh Tests after a month-long break following the Sri Lanka ODIs.
"He is not playing a lot of cricket. Generally, you come after playing consistently, play T20s in the middle, so the rhythm is maintained. You have left T20s. You played only ODI cricket in Sri Lanka. That was in August first week and after that, nothing in August and the entire September and now October and a lot of runs have not been scored," Chopra said.
Kohli will be looking to score quite a few runs in the Bengaluru Test, at the venue where he scored his first hundred on home soil, against New Zealand in August 2012.
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