Virat Kohli was dismissed off a brute of a delivery by Mitchell Starc during the second day of the World Test Championship final between India and Australia, with India further into trouble as the control firmly shifted to Australia at the Kia Oval.

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The unplayable ball

Even in real-time, the ball, measured at 88mph, looked vicious, jumping off a length and taking some glove along to the slip cordon, where Steve Smith leapt and took a catch.

“A bit of extra bounce from nowhere,” observed Nasser Hussain on commentary. CricViz quantified the extra bounce of the cross-seamed delivery, and inferred that the average bounce for deliveries in the 9 to 9.5-metre length bracket were measured to be 1.11 metres, while the Kohli dismissal was measured to rise 1.54 metres.

The plaudits continued even till later. At the press conference, Steve Smith said: “Virat got a very difficult one, he couldn’t really do much there to be fair and if you’re hitting those areas consistently it’s quite challenging.” Harbhajan Singh, on his YouTube channel, dubbed it “the most difficult delivery of the day”.

Was there a technical fault involved?

Sunil Gavaskar and Sanjay Manjrekar, two former India cricketers-turned-commentators, were of the opinion that Kohli could have dealt with the delivery better, but was incorrectly committing himself on the front foot.

According to India Today, when asked by broadcasters Star Sports how the Starc delivery can be dealt with by a batter, Gavaskar said: “off the backfoot”.

“You could have a look again, today because of the fact that there are only two bouncers per over, most batters are onto the front foot,” he continued. “This means they are not able to get onto the back foot and give themselves the extra yard where you could have probably let the ball go by dropping your wrists.

“Yes, it was a tough delivery because he was so committed to the front foot that he was not able to withdraw his bat at the last moment. If he had been on the back foot.

“It looked like an unplayable ball, but if he had been on the back foot, he would have been able to drop his wrists”.

Manjrekar echoed Gavaskar’s sentiments while speaking to ESPNcricinfo.

“A lot was being said about the ball that was bowled, but I looked at the pitch map that I got from our in-house team and the ball actually has pitched halfway. It’s a short ball.

“And if you see Virat Kohli – that’s his position – we’ve got the still image of that particular shot that got him on the glove. That’s the problem I have had with Kohli for the last couple of years, where he’s on the front foot, no matter what.

“That ball is short. Unfortunately, it’s reared up from (that) length, but when you’re getting on the front foot, that back foot – you don’t see the crease there, but the back foot I’m telling you is outside the front crease. So both his legs are outside the crease and he’s trying to negotiate a ball that has reared from halfway down the pitch. It’s halfway down the pitch!

“It’s a snorter if the ball is up on good length, where most batters will get onto the front foot and that’s why I’ve become a proponent of the back-foot play. And you see the reaction, he’s gone onto the front foot, and once the ball rears, if you’ve committed on the front foot, you’ve got no chance.”

Kohli was dismissed for 14, with India’s top four all being dismissed between scores of 13 and 15.

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