India pushed Virat Kohli up to No.3 in the first innings of the Bengaluru Test against New Zealand today (October 17).
Shubman Gill, India's designated No.3 in Tests these days, was ruled out of the match due to a niggle and was replaced by Sarfaraz Khan in the XI. However, it wasn't a like-for-like replacement in the sense that Sarfaraz slotted in straight at No.3 in place of Gill. Instead, India promoted Kohli to No.3 when they lost their first wicket in the seventh over of the morning session today, raising eyebrows.
A first in eight years
Kohli has made a home for himself at No.4, like many of the greats of the game have over the years. 148 of his 196 Test knocks have come at No.4, with the next most frequent spot being No.5 with 31 innings, where he used to bat before the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar. However, he had only batted six times at No.3 before today, with his last outing at the position coming way back in 2016 against the West Indies.
Kohli didn't have a great record at No.3 coming into the game, having scored only 97 runs at an average of 19.4 with no fifty-plus scores to show. The numbers only worsened for him as he was dismissed for a duck today, thanks to a steeply rising back of length ball by Will O'Rourke that took his gloves and flew to leg gully.
Why then, despite a poor (albeit with a small sample size) record at three, a settled slot at four, and in extremely tough conditions for batting, was Kohli thrown into the hotspot?
