Gavaskar heaps praise on captain Kohli

There were a couple of Test matches played last week. The Australians, having been beaten by the South Africans in both the Tests, were scarpering and looking for some excuses for their defeat. As always their extended support staff, their media, came to their rescue with the allegation against Faf du Plessis about ball tampering.

Faf du Plessis was seen on TV applying saliva on the ball after having first put his finger in the mouth which had a lolly. So. Aha! that was the reason why the Australian batsmen couldn’t cope with the South African bowlers.

It had nothing to do with fine bowling by the South Africans but all to do because the ball was tampered with by the Proteas’ skipper. Many times when a player is pulled up and asked to appear for a hearing by the match referee he pleads guilty because that's the easy way out.

He will be fined and to today’s cricketers earning the big bucks in various leagues, a fine doesn’t hurt at all. So they are out of the hearing in a matter of minutes and back to having a drink with the rest of the team.

This time however du Plessis decided to fight it and he got punished with a 100% fine of his match fees. He is going to appeal it as he should.

When the Aussies do that then can their ancestors be far behind? So having been soundly beaten by the Indians where their seam bowlers got a fraction of the wickets that the spinners got, the target was the Indian skipper for a similar charge of ball tampering. Anil Kumble has given it the thump it deserves.

What is astonishing is that all this is called cheating while a batsman who edges the ball but doesn’t walk is not called so or a bowler who knows the batsman has edged the ball onto the pads but still appeals for leg before wicket. Many such instances happen every day of the game but nobody says a word.

Sad isn’t it? The argument put forward is that the umpire is there to give a decision but then not just the umpires on the field but the TV umpire was there to see if there was anything untoward being done to the ball so why not accept that decision that Virat Kohli did nothing wrong.

Kohli did nothing wrong with the bat either in both the innings of the Vizag Test match scoring a capital century in the first innings and just missing another one in the second. His batting along with Pujara’s set the platform for India’s bowlers who then seamed and spun the English to their defeat.

Virat Kohli for his batting in both innings of the second Test match is the CEAT International Cricketer of the Week.

Source: PMG

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