Wonderful player of spin – Kevin Pietersen hails Virat Kohli during Ashes

Former England’s swashbuckling batter Kevin Pietersen has lauded Virat Kohli for his impressive game against the spinners. Kohli is well-known to play the spinners from the crease and hardly uses his feet to get to the pitch of the ball.

In fact, Kohli has been dismissed stumped on only one occasion in his Test career of 109 Test matches. Earlier in the year, Australian wicket-keeper Alex Carey stumped Kohli on the bowling of rookie spinner, Todd Murphy, who bowled from around the wicket angle to flummox the veteran batter in the Border-Gavaskar series.

The opinion came after former England skipper Joe Root was also dismissed stumped for the first time in his Test career in the second innings of the first Ashes Test against Australia on Monday at Edgbaston, Birmingham.

Speaking to Sky Sports, Kevin Pietersen said: “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.”

On the other hand, former Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara lauded Virat Kohli for playing the spinners from 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.”

Meanwhile, Virat Kohli could not deliver the goods in the all-important World Test Championship final against Australia as he returned with scores of 14 and 49. Kohli has all the experience under his belt and he will look to be at his best in the ODI World Cup, which will take place later in the year.

India will next tour West Indies for two Test matches, three ODIs, and five T20Is.