Playing for the first time since the Champions Trophy 2025 win, Virat Kohli fell for back-to-back ducks in the first two ODIs against Australia. In the first game familiar foe did him when he edged one of a delivery on the fourth stump, and on Thursday, the Indian number three did not have answers to Xavier Bartlett’s nip-backer.
“He will have to get some form pretty quickly. The competition for places is such in India in white-ball cricket, no one is going to relax, whether it is Virat or Rohit or anyone in the team,” Former Indian Head Coach Ravi Shastri said while speaking to Fox Sports. “It isn’t going to be easy; there is competition. He has missed out again today; he was a little tentative with his footwork. It does not happen often; his record in one-day cricket is phenomenal, so for him to get two ducks on the trot, he will be disappointed,” Shastri added.
Decoding first ODI dismissal
Former Australian skipper Michael Clarke felt that it was the extra bounce that induced the edge of Kohli’s bat in first ODI in Perth against Mitchell Starc, and if the shot was played in India, the chasemaster would have definitely creamed it for a boundary.
“That muscle memory of just game after game, which he has done for 15 years, but then have six months off and play in very, very foreign conditions is hard. If his first game back was in India, I think he’s straight back into it. But because he’s in Australia, that shot he played, in India he cover drives that for four,” Clarke said speaking on Beyond23 Cricket Podcast.
“Here, it bounced and hit him a bit higher on the bat, he’s out in front of himself and gets caught at backward point. So, their top three, for them to get out like that, sort of sums up their play throughout the game. Their bowlers tried to get their lengths right and some mixups in the running, so they were just underdone,” he added.