Mitchell Starc took the valuable wicket of Virat Kohli and stunned the Pune crowd in the first Test of the India vs Australia 2017, four-match Test series. After taking the wicket of Cheteshwar Pujara with a short ball which was angled into his body, the delivery extracted extra bounce off the surface and managed to take an edge past his bat into Mathew Wade’s gloves.
After this wicket, everyone in the crowd cheered as skipper Kohli was coming out to bat. Everyone expected him to lead the batting line up but what happened was exactly opposite, he chased Starc’s delivery wide of off stump, flashing his blade but ended up edging it to Wade who did not make any mistake.
However, that wicket from Starc was considered to be a well-planned ball from him to Kohli, inviting him to drive the ball and score a boundary and exposing an edge off his bat in the process.
For once, Mitchell Starc was pretty happy he didn’t get his inswinger right! #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/fotFafpad2
— cricket.com.au (@CricketAus) February 28, 2017
But, the truth of the matter was something else. Starc accepted on February 28 that if you look closely at the ball it was supposed to come back into Kohli instead of going away from him. Clearly, he means that getting the wicket of Kohli was sheer luck.
Though, he is not making the mistake of taking Kohli lightly who has scored 4 double hundreds in four consecutive Test series. The left-arm fast bowler believes that Indian skipper will come back ‘bigger and stronger’ in the next Test which is to be played at Bengaluru starting March 4.
Starc not only made a mark in the Pune Test with the ball but played a lone hand in the first innings down the order which helped them take a substantial lead after India’s batting collapse.
