The second and final Test of India tour of New Zealand commenced on Saturday. On day 1, the hosts New Zealand won the toss and invited India to bat first. The entire Indian batting lineup was bundled out for just 242 runs.
As many as three Indian batsmen Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara and Hanuma Vihari scored half-centuries but none of them applied themselves at the middle and converted their fifty into a hundred.
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Virat Kohli’s horrid run in International cricket continued as he departed for just 3 runs. Consequently, this was the first occasion when Bumrah scored more runs than the Indian skipper in a Test innings.
Bumrah’s highest Test score
At Christchurch’s Hagley Oval while most Indian batsmen struggled to get some valuable runs on the board, tail-enders Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami scored runs quickly and with a lot of freedom. While Shami scored two consecutive sixes off two deliveries, Bumrah managed to register his highest Test score in this innings. Both of them scored more runs than Kohli in the test match.
The right-handed batsman Bumrah scored an unbeaten 10 in this innings which included a boundary. Bumrah thus scored 7 more runs than Virat in this innings. This is the first instance in the history of Test match cricket when Bumrah has outscored Kohli in a Test innings.
However, the concern for India is that Virat is constantly failing with the bat while Bumrah has looked a pale shadow of himself with the ball in hand.
The out of form Virat Kohli
Often known as the Run machine, Virat Kohli is struggling to get some runs under his belt. As far as international cricket is concerned, Kohli last scored a ton in the Pink-ball Test at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata against Bangladesh in November 2019. However, post that Kohli has failed to get big runs.
In his last 5 innings, Virat registered scores of 3, 19, 2, 9 and 15.
The reason behind his failure
One of the best batsmen in world cricket at the moment, Virat Kohli’s failure has concerned fans and commentators alike. However, Virat is confident about his process and says that nothing is wrong with his batting and it is only a matter of executing his plans to the best of his ability and sometimes scores do not reflect the way a batsman is batting.
