Virat Kohli has questioned Edgbaston’s short boundary, where England openers made considerable runs against the Indian Bowlers. Although Kohli didn’t blame the shorter boundary for India’s first defeat of the World Cup and showed disapproval over the pitch that was flat and slow.
The shorter boundary was a worrying thing to India. On Saturday, as soon as India arrived at the Edgbaston ground, the coaching staff, Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Bangar, and Bharat Arun were seen talking to the head groundsman, as the rules for pitch and floor were set by the ICC.
England batsman, particularly Jonny Bairstow, who hit a century, took complete advantage of the short boundary. Bairstow hit five out of six sixes where all of them went over the shorter boundary. Four were against Chahal and one was against Kuldeep. Ben Stoke, too, took the advantage by hitting reverse-swept six against Chahal, who was hit over the boundary half a dozen times on a day when he returned the worst ever figures for an Indian bowler in the World Cup with 10-0-88-0.
Kohli was seen rushing to Chahal frequently, telling him to stick to bowling on lines, that didn’t allow the batsman to take advantage of the shorter boundary. In the end, Kohli couldn’t hide his frustration.
“It’s a coincidence that it (the short boundary) just falls under the limitations of the shortest boundary you can have in the tournament. So quite bizarre on a flat pitch, it’s the first time we’ve experienced that so it’s crazy that things fall in place like that randomly.” – Kohli said.
Kohli said – “stress was completely on the spinners to be stable, although he told Indian bowlers pitched could have been much better”.
“I don’t think so because if batsmen are able to reverse sweep you for a six on a 59-meter boundary then there is not much you can do as a spinner. There is no sort of room to think whether you are going to get out or not and one side was about 82 (meters) or something like that. Yeah, look, they had to be smart with the with lines they bowled, but with one short boundary it was very difficult to contain runs.” – Kohli added.
