Virat Kohli continues to remain the epicenter of every discussion around the Indian team due to his poor run. Back in 2019, he scored his last international hundred, against Bangladesh in a day-night Test in Kolkata. But since then, things have gone south for the former Indian captain.
After an underwhelming IPL 2022, Kohli’s struggle with the bat in hand continued to the England tour as well. In the rescheduled fifth Test in Birmingham, he registered scores of 11 and 20 across innings. Later, in the T20I series, he scored only 12 runs (1 and 11) in two games.
Cricket pundits have mostly blamed his bad luck rather than pointing out any flaw in his batting technique. However, former Pakistan cricketer coach Mushtaq Ahmed recently claimed that he did give Kohli a piece of advice on his batting during India’s ongoing tour of England.
While speaking on a Pakistani channel ARY News, Mushtaq said he had an interaction with Kohli at the gym, advising the latter to work on his front foot movement.
“Once Virat was training in the gym and he himself came to me and asked how’s everything is going and after a brief conversation I told him a couple of things and he’s a very smart and a good listener,” Mushtaq revealed.
“So, I told Virat that the initial 10-15 runs you score, your front foot lands straight on the pitch and when you try to drive the ball and as your foot is not in the direction of the ball, it takes the outside nick even on a flat surface,” he added.
The former England coach further revealed that Kohli acknowledged his advice and applied it during the ongoing tour of England.
“After that, I noted that he began to shuffle across the pitch to get the ball in the middle but as you know when a batter shuffles especially when it is swinging, he lost track of where his off-stump was,” Mushtaq shared.
“He was carefully listening to all my points and acknowledged me, ‘That’s a very good point Mushi Bhai and I would work on it’,” he maintained.
Mushtaq went on to say that he spoke to the England team and discussed how to restrict Kohli from scoring big during the tour.
“We made a policy for him [Kohli] during India’s white-ball tour and I told the English management that being an Asian coach, I think we should set a tight field for him for his first 15 runs. Let him hit the ball over mid-off, mid-on, or cover but he won’t be able to do so since he is afraid,” Mushtaq claimed.
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