NEW DELHI: India lost openers KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal early after captain Jasprit Bumrah won the toss and opted to bat against Australia in overcast conditions and a grassy pitch at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Friday.
Mitchell Starc dismissed KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal fell to Scott Boland.
Virat Kohli arrived at the crease with India at 17/2 in 7.4 overs with the Aussies charged up.
With Kohli getting dismissed caught behind the stumps throughout the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the Aussies had set the trap with a full slip cordon in place.
Boland bowled back of a length delivery that nipped away, took the edge as Kohli pushed at it.
The ball went down and Steve Smith at second slip thought he scooped it up but the ball had just grazed the turf before being taken by the man at gully.
Aussies were delirious when they claimed it. But the third umpire took his time and signalled it not out and Kohli survived falling for a first ball duck.
But former Australian opener and coach Justin Langer maintained that Kohli was out.
7Cricket shared a post on X with Langer saying, “From what I have seen there, that makes it more obvious to me that should have been out. Steve Smith had his fingers (underneath the ball), and you could see he was flicking the ball up, it was brilliant what he did. He had his fingers under the ball, he flicked it up deliberately and in my opinion that’s out.”
Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting also shared his views on the decision, “As far as I was concerned, if (the ball) had’ve come out of (Smith’s) hand, he wouldn’t have been able to scoop it up. That’s what I’m saying, I think his fingers are clearly underneath the ball … look where his pointer figure is there, it’s still underneath the ball.”
Kohli, from 10 Tests and 19 innings in 2024, scored 417 runs at an average of 24.52 with one hundred and one fifty.
That century by Virat was the unbeaten 100 he scored in the first Test in Perth – the match that India won by 295 runs.
