Michael Atherton, former England captain, took a sly dig at Virat Kohli after India lost the first Test to New Zealand in Bengaluru. Notably, India was bowled out for 46 runs in 1st innings after Rohit Sharma won the toss and chose to bat in overcast conditions.
This is India’s third-lowest Test total and lowest at home. This total came after 36 against Australia in Adelaide in 2020-21 and 42 against England at Lord’s in 1974.
This has led to Atherton taking a dig at star India batter Virat Kohli. He stated that his glorious cricketing CV which is filled with record wins and batting milestones, now includes two of India's lowest-ever team totals, reminding the 35-year-old of the infamous ‘36 all-out’ in Adelaide in the team's last tour of Australia in 2020/21.
“More than a hundred years separated these two performances. Yet India’s 46 all out in the first Test against New Zealand came only four years after their lowest-ever score, 36 all out against Australia in Adelaide. India’s batsmen plumbed the depths again before the previous embarrassment had slipped from memory. Virat Kohli’s glittering CV now includes being a part of two of India’s three lowest-ever scores,” Atherton wrote in his column for the Times.
Writing further in his column, Atherton drew a similarity between India’s 46 all-out and his time as England captain when his team was shot out for 46 by West Indies in 1994 in Port of Spain.
“Welcome to my world, Rohit. There is not that much common ground between myself and India’s swashbuckling captain, Rohit Sharma, but we both now know what it is like to captain a side that has been bowled out for 46. All the feverish adulation from a billion fans doesn’t diminish the hurt pride that follows such ignominy,” he wrote.
"Earlier this year marked the 30th anniversary of my team’s 46 all out in Port of Spain, Trinidad, highlighted with a lengthy recollection in these pages. Having parked the events for so long to the back of my mind, there was a grisly kind of pleasure in revisiting them again.
The memories came flooding back readily. The dramatic bowling of Curtly Ambrose, knees and arms pumping on an increasingly uneven pitch; the intense atmosphere of the Queen’s Park Oval, in the days when Test cricket was well supported in the Caribbean; and the growing sense of panic and doom in the dingy, sweaty England dressing room that only hours before had been supremely confident of victory," he added.
Rohit stated in the press conference that he made a mistake in judging the conditions in Chinnaswamy and selecting three spinners for the lineup. While seasoned Indian cricketers praised the move, supporters on social media slammed the captain, labeling him "clueless" following the loss.
“Why, by the way, is there greater opprobrium towards a captain who wins the toss, inserts the opposition, disastrously, over one who bats first and it all goes wrong? Rohit owned up, but it seems unlikely in years to come that he will be reminded of it in the way that Nasser Hussain was about Brisbane in 2002, when, having inserted Australia, his bowlers were flogged around the Gabba as Australia reached 364 for two at the end of the first day,” Atherton wrote in support of Rohit.
The second Test between India and New Zealand will be played in Pune from October 24 onwards.
