Ace Indian batter Virat Kohli proved to be the top-scorer for the Men in Blue in their terrible outing with the bat in the ongoing second ODI against Australia being played at Vishakhapatnam on March 19, 2023.
India, who is leading the three-ODI series 1-0, was asked to bat first by Steve Smith who won the toss. Rohit Sharma came back into the side in place of Ishan Kishan and Akshar Patel was included in place of Shardul Thakur.
Australia also made two changes as Nathan Ellis replaced Glenn Maxwell and Alex Carey came in for Josh Inglis.
Mitchell Starc was once again excellent with the new ball as he dismissed Shubman Gill for a two-ball duck in the first over itself and then removed Rohit Sharma, caught behind in the slips for 13 runs. On the next ball, he trapped Suryakumar Yadav LBW, handing him his second consecutive golden duck.
And then Starc took KL Rahul’s wicket for 1 run.
Virat Kohli played some excellent shots for his 31 in 35 balls but was out LBW once more as he tried to play across his front leg and was out to Nathan Ellis. Before departing, the star batter had a brief chat with Ravindra Jadeja over the possibility of overturning the decision with DRS, but the latter had a rather resigned look on his face as Kohli walked back on 31.
Here is the video:
Meanwhile, Sunil Gavaskar on commentary for Star Sports expressed his frustration at the batter's dismissal.
“He plays across the line once again. He knows that. That's something he's getting out quite regularly, playing across the line nowadays. Looking to play for square leg, not the mid-on, that's what gets him into trouble,” Gavaskar said.
Starc with 5/53, Sean Abbott with 3/23, and Nathan Ellis with 2/13 were the architects of India’s 117 all-out innings. Apart from Virat Kohli, Akshar Patel made 29* to help India go past the three-figure mark.
