Kohli's Troubles Against Leg-Spinners Continues

India captain Virat Kohli has been dismissed only four times in the seven limited-overs matches during England's ongoing tour of India. On three of those occasions, he has fallen to leg-spinner Adil Rashid.

On Friday, Kohli (66) fell to Rashid while trying to play a cut shot and edging his leg-break to wicket-keeper Jos Buttler.

The England spinner has had the better of the talismanic Indian batsman despite being at the receiving end of the some of other India batsmen at times.

Kohli's failures against Rashid in the ongoing white-ball games would have been brushed under the carpet. And, had it not been for his recent failures against right-arm wrist spinners.

Though Kohli has tried to score against wrist spinners and always tried to be attacking, he has also fallen to them.

"We basically found that Virat finds leg-spinners hard to line up early in his innings," Australia leg-spinner Adam Zampa had said in January 2020 when the Aussies had toured India for a limited-overs series. In that three-ODI series, Zampa had got him out twice.

 

In 2017, Zampa had got Kohli once and in March 2019 as well the Aussie had dismissed him out twice.

Soon after Australia's visit to India in 2020, Kiwi leg-spinner Ish Sodhi dimissed Kohli with a googly on the tour of New Zealand. Although that was his only dismissal off a leg-spinner in the seven white-ball games he played on that tour, the way he was dismissed told a story.

Sodhi bowled a googly and Kohli played for a leg-break, meaning that he hadn't read the ball from the bowler's hand. Sodhi had got him out twice in 2016, twice in two matches within three days.

Interestingly, in T20 Internationals, Rashid, Sodhi and Zampa have got rid of Kohli twice, which is the most number of times a bowler has got the Indian master batsman. There are others, too, who have got him out twice.

Rashid has dismissed Kohli three times in seven One-day International matches.

In 2018 at Headingley, Leeds, Rashid produced one of the best deliveries bowled in ODI cricket to bowl Kohli when he was batting well at 71. The ball pitched outside the leg-stump and then went onto clip the off-stump. The expression on Kohli's face showed he was stunned.

Five days before that dismissal, Rashid had Kohli stumped off a beautifully flighted delivery at Trent Bridge, Nottingham.