Former Australian captain Steve Waugh thinks Virast Kohli paid the price of not respecting Adam Zampa enough. Indian team lost the first fixture of three-match ODI series in Mumbai and Kohli was dismissed by Zama for just 16 runs.
The prelude
India batting first came up with a disheartening show where most of the batsmen failed terribly. Kohli batted at No. 4 with not much success. The visitors bowled out India for 255 runs and that too was because of the prolific partnership between Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul. Dhawan ended as the highest scorer for India with 74 runs. Australia, in reply chased down the score in just 38 over for no loss. David Warner and the skipper Aaron Finch score a century each and gave the biggest ODI win to the team against India in terms of wickets. This was also India’s first ten wicket loss in ODIs at home since 2005.
What Waugh thinks
To accommodate Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul along with Rohit Sharma, Kohli chose to bat at two down which didn’t seem to be a right call. Speaking about Kohli’s innings Steve Waugh, the Aussie legend mentioned about the clash between Kohli and Zampa which was highly dominated by the latter. During the commentary for Fox Cricket, Waugh clearly blamed Kohli for the way he treated Zampa’s bowling. He said, “I just don’t think he’s showing Zampa enough respect and he paid the price.”
But Indian captain was full of praise for the wrist-spinner and his strong mindset earlier. “Throughout the game, even when he was hit for boundaries, he kept coming at the batsmen and try and get them out, which I think is important for a wrist-spinner. And his mindset was a stand out for them in the last series.”
But to go by Waugh’s words, it looks like Indian skipper himself forgot what he had said about Zampa.
Source: Cricadium