Virat Kohli once again fell victim to a left-arm spinner in Colombo. In a match against Sri Lanka, he o played a short ball from Dunith Wellalage to square leg, but the ball went to midwicket in Shanaka’s hands. From January 2022 to until now, Virat has been dismissed nine times by a left-arm spinner, with an average of 13 runs against them.
In nine of these occasions, he was caught out seven times, bowled twice and stumped once. This year, it happened four times and last year, a five times, in which he was dismissed by Shakib Al Hasan, Mitchell Santner and Keshav Maharaj twice and by Wellalage, Ashton Agar and Tabraiz Shamsi once. In fact, Virat often does not get the right idea of the length of the ball from the left-arm spinner. Sometimes his biggest problem is that he cannot reach the pitch of the ball and he finds himself in trouble when the ball is turning. Either the ball goes back behind the stumps after taking the outside edge of the bat, or he suddenly swings the bat in the direction of cover. In this direction, he was out on Shakib’s ball in Chittagong and also in Paarl, his bat went into the cover as soon as it reached the pitch on Keshav Maharaj’s ball. In the same way, he was caught at midwicket in Colombo in Asia Cup in a hurry. He does not play such shots, this happened to him and the result is in front of you. Virat Kohli usually does trigger movements against fast bowlers, but he should also do trigger movements against spinners. If the bowler’s seam position is coming out, then the ball will drift in the air and also drift after pitching, he needs to anticipate that. Second, his footwork, he moved half-heartedly, which makes him more troubled in front of left-arm spinners. For this, it would be better if he played Ravindra Jadeja as much as possible, especially on the grass.
Virat Kohli got bowled defending a length ball from Mitchell Santner in Hyderabad. In a similar way, in Chennai, a length ball from Ashton Agar pitched off stump did not come on to the bat properly and he was caught by David Warner. New Zealand wicket-keeper Tom Latham must be very happy because he has stumped Virat Kohli and Babar Azam both this year. He even managed to stump Babar three times. In Raipur, Virat repeated the same mistake on Michael Santner’s delivery and he couldn’t reach the pitch of the ball and the rest of the job has done by the turning ball.
In Mirpur, last year, the way Virat was caught by Liton Das on Shakib’s delivery was quite unusual. This time, he couldn’t reach the pitch of Shakib’s flighted ball. During the South Africa tour, he was troubled by left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj many times. In this tour, he was also dismissed by Tabraiz Shamsi, left-arm wrist spinner. Virat was tempted to play the sweep against the turn. Keshav got him out with turn and bounce in Paarl, where he was caught easily at cover. Interestingly, in South Africa, Bavuma caught him three times of left arm spinner`s delivery. Although leg-spinner Adam Zampa and off-spinner Moeen Ali also troubled him, but facing a left-arm spinner, Virat never seemed like, he was the same Virat who has scored more than 25,000 runs in international cricket. The above suggestions use of trigger movement, judging the seam position correctly, a slight adjustment in footwork can help overcome these challenges while facing left arm spinners. By facing such kind of spinners on a grassy surface can help him in avoiding these problems.
