Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin got injured in the 1st Test match at Adelaide and was ruled out of the 2nd Test match in Perth. And that prompted the visitors to go with an all-pace attack with Umesh Yadav replacing the injured Ashwin. An injury to Rohit Sharma opened the doors for Hanuma Vihari who picked up 2 crucial wickets in Australia’s 1st innings with his part-time bowling!
On the other hand, home team Australia despite a 31-run loss in the 1st Test match in Adelaide have carried their unchanged playing XI from Adelaide to Perth. And the two wickets picked up by India’s part time spinner Hanuma Vihari has only raised expectations and pressure on Nathan Lyon.
With the amount of turn early on in India’s first innings, Lyon delivered a peach of a delivery that almost got rid of Indian captain Virat Kohli. It all happened in the 18th over of India’s 1st innings while Virat Kohli was batting on 22. However, Kohli was more than happy to leave that delivery pitched outside off-stump but it turned miles in only to miss the top of his off-stump by a whisker!
A video of the incident where Virat Kohli survived by a whisker:
Yep, two types of leaves! Wait for the replay… #CloseMatters #AUSvIND | @GilletteAU pic.twitter.com/dm99xtmuPV
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 15, 2018
This is one of those incidents where the pacy and bouncy wicket in Perth has come to the aid of batsman! Indian captain then went on to dominate Aussie bowlers to notch up his 25th hundred in this format of the game and in just 127 innings. Only Australia’s Don Bradman (68 Test innings) is quicker than Virat to 25 hundreds in Tests.
With every century, the 30-year old Kohli is getting closer and closer to Sachin Tendulkar’s milestone of 51 Test centuries. Sunil Gavaskar (34 centuries) and Rahul Dravid (36 centuries) are the only other Indian players to have scored more centuries than Virat in this format at the moment.
Keep reading ReadScoops.com for similar updates from India tour of Australia 2018
![LEVIS [CPS] IN](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22%20viewBox=%220%200%20728%2090%22%3E%3C/svg%3E)
