Veteran England batter Kevin Pietersen heaped praise on Virat Kohli for his ability to play spin in red-ball cricket. Kohli has not been at his best form in Test cricket for the past three years but he still remains one of the best in the business. The batting maverick has scored just one Test century since 2020.
While the 34-year-old faced scrutiny for his below-par show with the bat in the recently-concluded World Test Championship Final against Australia. His shot selection in the tricky 444-run chase was heavily criticised by several cricket critics and fans. He scored 49 runs in the second innings before edging the ball outside the off stump to the slip where Steve Smith claimed a fine catch.
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However, Pietersen hailed Kohli during the ongoing Ashes Test series in England. He emphasised on how the Indian batting maestro sticks to the traditional shots and shows a strong mindset against spin in Test.
“He [Virat Kohli] is a wonderful player of spin, and you sort of understand it because they play spin off the back foot and have such beautiful wrists. You hardly ever see Virat running down, charging, and going all guns blazing, and he certainly doesn’t sweep, reverse sweep. I mean, you can watch him bat. Mentally, you can see him batting there, so you can sort of understand that,” Pietersen said on Sky Sports.
While legendary Sri Lanka batter Kumar Sangakkara also talked about Kohli’s batting approach and said he stays in the crease and hit the ball out of the park and didn’t take many risks while stepping out of the crease.
“He [Kohli] is also a kind of IPL mode, isn’t it? A lot of these players are very happy step-hitting from the crease. So, they don’t allow bowlers to bowl on a length, so the old art of having to use your feet against spin is gone, or they don’t do it anymore. You drop down and work a single. No, just stay in the crease and hit it out of the park. That’s true,” Sangakkara said.