Virat Kohli returned to the Indian side for the first time after winning the Champions Trophy 2025. In the two games he played Down Under, Kohli fell for ducks. While in the first ODI, he edged one off Mitchell Starc in the fourth stump channel, and in the 2nd ODI, he was done by an incoming delivery by Xavier Bartlett. Former Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan said if Kohli could rotate strike, there is no looking back.
“Virat Kohli’s form is important. He needs to rotate the strike and keep the scoreboard moving. Because once he starts doing that, it becomes very difficult for any opposition to stop him. I hope Virat starts rotating the strike quickly, gets some runs on the board, and once that happens, there’s no looking back for him,” Pathan said on JioStar.
Former Head Coach Ravi Shastri, on the other hand, gave caution to Kohli, saying he needs to score runs quickly. “He’ll have to get some form pretty quickly. The competition for places is such in India in white-ball cricket, no one is going to relax, whether it’s Virat or Rohit or anyone in the team. It’s not going to be easy; there is competition. He missed out again today; he was a little tentative with his footwork. It doesn’t happen often, his record in one-day cricket is phenomenal, so for him to get two ducks on the trot, he’ll be disappointed.” Shastri said while commentating on Fox Sports during the second ODI.
Decoding Kohli’s dismissal in the first ODI at Perth, Former Australian skipper Michael Clarke felt that it was the extra bounce that induced the edge, and if the shot was played in India, the chasemaster would have definitely creamed it for a boundary.
“That muscle memory of just game after game, which he has done for 15 years, but then have six months off and play in very, very foreign conditions is hard. If his first game back was in India, I think he’s straight back into it. But because he’s in Australia, that shot he played, in India he cover drives that for four,” Clarke said speaking on Beyond23 Cricket Podcast.
“Here, it bounced and hit him a bit higher on the bat, he’s out in front of himself and gets caught at backward point. So, their top three, for them to get out like that, sort of sums up their play throughout the game. Their bowlers tried to get their lengths right and some mixups in the running, so they were just underdone,” he added.
