5 surprising captaincy decisions by Virat Kohli in 2018

#5 Not picking any spinner for the Perth Test

Ravichandran Ashwin

It was on 14 December 2018 when the Indian skipper Kohli made another surprising decision as captain. The Indian team management once again failed to read the pitch and Kohli went on to play the 2nd Test at Perth with four pacers and no leading spinner, presumably after looking at the green track.

The Indian pacers especially Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami did a brilliant job. But the efforts from the Indian pacers went in vain as they lacked a quality spinner.

Nathan Lyon, the Australian spinner, extracted a lot of bounce to bag 5 wickets in the first innings and 4 wickets in the second. And Hanuma Vihari, who was the only spinner in the Indian line-up, troubled the opponents to pick two wickets in the first innings.

The result could well have been different had India played a front-line spinner at Perth.