Sport

IND vs AUS: ‘No surprise,’ Australia wicketkeeper not surprised Virat Kohli ends his Test century drought against Australia in fourth Test

March 12, 2023
Bharat Times

Australia wicket-keeper Alex Carey says Virat Kohli is not the type to pass up an opportunity to score a ‘daddy century’ on a good batting pitch and on Sunday he showed how to do it. Kohli scored 186 in India’s 571 as the fourth Test entered the fifth day with Australia needing two sessions of good batting to pull out a draw. (See Live Score IND vs AUS 4th Test)

“No surprise, he (Kohli) was batting well and showed how to really do it. He’s a class player and he didn’t really give us a chance,” Carey said after the fourth day’s play. play.

Carey said, “We knew Virat would be difficult to bowl to. We were able to contain him as much as we could and tried to take wickets around him.” (Read: Shubman Gill breaks silence on having a crush on Rashmika Mandanna)

The keeper said it was a known fact to expect the crowd to rally behind Kohli and he was ready to go above the decibel level of the noise.

“Whenever you come to India and Virat’s next innings or bats, you know it’s going to be noisy and he played really well today. But I thought we held on really well. ”

Carey, in a very roundabout way, made it clear that there was no question of an Australian victory.

“It’s definitely going to be a big challenge,” he said, adding, “We’ll be paying a lot of attention to that first hour of cricket and then we’ll see how it unfolds.”

India not having the services of Shreyas Iyer was a big loss and the visitors were happy to reduce the lead to under 100 (91).

“We played really well today, I think, to reduce the lead. Obviously, they don’t have Shreyas (he left the field for the scan and didn’t come back), so we’re going to change the innings. Which was nice later in the day.”

Kuhnman is here to open

Matt Kuhnmann, who had bowled 25 overs off the break during India’s first innings, came out to open as the Australian team manager informed that regular opener Usman Khawaja had injured his calf and could not come to bat. .

“A left-handed Queenslander like Uzzi (Khwaja),” Carey joked.

“He put his hand up straight away and did a great job. Maybe it wasn’t his day for the ball. But, yeah, everybody will definitely come up to him to put his hand up tonight. It’s a tough job and going out Facing that new ball against the Indian spinners, so he did a great job with Travis (Head), but of course the night-watchman came into the game with 20 minutes to play, so send him out,” he added. .