Virat Kohli had a tough time on day two in the ongoing first Test between West Indies and India being played at Windsor Park in Dominica as he managed only 36* in 90-odd balls at the stumps with India finishing on 312/2.
Resuming on 80/0, Indian openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma, both hit centuries, while adding 229 runs for the first wicket when Rohit got out for 103 runs. Jaiswal continued to counter the West Indies bowling as he registered his maiden Test fifty in 104 balls.
In between, Shubman Gill, in his first outing at the no.3 spot, managed only 6 runs and this brought out Virat Kohli in the middle to join Jaiswal who was looking very good on a slow pitch which aided West Indies spinners.
Jaiswal, went on to hit his maiden Test ton on debut in 215 balls and finished on 143* at stumps.
Kohli, on the other hand, found it hard to force the pace on a slow, sluggish pitch and this resulted him in hitting his first boundary on the 81st ball he faced and in all played 96 balls before stumps, making 36*.
Interestingly, a few reports including one in the Wisden, said that Kohli was heard saying on the stump mic, "Bhatta phenk raha hai" while facing West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite, which roughly translates to "he is throwing bricks".
The incident occurred during the 79th over when Virat was not pleased with one of the deliveries and stated the same to Yashasvi Jaiswal at the other end. The statement implied that Kohli was saying that Brathwaite’s bowling action was not legal and he might have been chucking.
This was not the first time that Brathwaite's bowling action has been questioned. When India toured West Indies in 2019, Brathwaite was reported for his action. Even in 2017, his action was reported but, on both occasions, the ICC found nothing wrong, suggesting his action was within the legal limits specified.
As per the law, for an action to be illegal, "a bowler's elbow extension should exceed 15 degrees, measured from the point at which the bowling arm reaches the horizontal until the point at which the ball is released".
The stump mic caught Virat’s conversation with Jaiswal, but no action was taken on the WI skipper because Kohli did not take the matter to on-field umpires.
West Indies skipper Brathwaite has played 85 Tests so far for the West Indies and picked up 29 wickets at an average of 51.65 with a best of 6/29.
