A golden chance missed: Travis Head on dropping Virat Kohli

The Indian captain Virat Kohli has been regarded as the best batsman in the world. He is also recognised as the backbone to the Indian cricket team for quite some time now at the same time, is also known for taking the game away from the opponents single-handedly. The Aussies were disappointed letting go the opportunity to dismiss the Indian skipper cheaply in the first innings of the third Test in Melbourne.

The Aussies missed a huge chance as Virat was dropped by the Australian captain Tim Paine while he was batting on 47 towards the end of the day. Australian bowlers didn’t have enough success on a flatter deck at the MCG as India finished with 215/2 – as Kohli (47) and Puraja (68) remained unbeaten at stumps.

Kohli has a fantastic record on Australian soil scoring 1216 in 21 innings with a healthy average of 60.8. Kohli’s performance will be the key to India’s success in the ongoing series. He has in the past made the opposition pay a huge price for giving him a life and Australia will hope that isn’t the case in this innings.

Travis Head hopes for better opening session on day2

Head while addressing the media after the end of the day’s play said: “We would have liked to have 4-5 wickets tonight, but it is a massive morning and if we can still get them down two wickets in the morning, it will be good while the ball is still reasonably hard and a couple left handers coming later on.”

He also mentioned that the bowling unit as a whole did well to restrict the flow of runs but were unlucky in terms of wickets. Head also lauded Pat Cummings for picking two wickets as the pitch turned out in favour of the batsmen.

“Cummins led from the front and got two wickets for us. He bowled hard and aggressive, used his bouncer well, and extracted something from the wicket. And he put pressure on Indian batsmen all day,” he added.

He also expects the bowlers to come back stronger tomorrow morning. The pitch at MCG didn’t offer much help to the fast bowlers and Head said they need to wait and watch how it plays for the next four days.

“I thought it would offer a little bit more than it did in the first couple hours. We thought it would offer more life leading into it. If you hit the wicket the pacers were able to get some pace off it but in other parts they weren’t able to,” Head explained detailing into the nature of the pitch.

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