Fans want Virat Kohli back at no. 3 after drubbing in 1st ODI

As India was thrashed by Australia in one of their toughest home matches post the World Cup, much of the blame was directed towards the Indian skipper Virat Kohli. His decision to demote himself to no.4 seems to have backfired the team and Indian fans on twitter showed no mercy in citing this out.

The Indian team has been trying numerous experiments for the past few series, mainly in the middle order. But Indian fans feel that this move to demote the World’s best no. 3 to no. 4 was nothing but a mad decision by the management and the captain himself.

Literally everyone to Virat After he demoted himself. pic.twitter.com/RQ0fomEXSG

— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) January 14, 2020

So India batting first. Interesting to see what the batting order will be given all three openers are playing. I do believe the best must play in their position ie. Kohli at 3.

— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) January 14, 2020

World’s best no. 3 demotes himself to no.4

India should fix no.4 position. Not fiddle with no.3 position unnecessarily & compound the problem. Kohli has been immensely successful at 3 & must retain that position. Don't muff up no.3 position in order to fix no.4. That's not how things are done. Don't fix that ain't broken.

— Navneet Mundhra (@navneet_mundhra) January 14, 2020

Fans seems to have not very well-liked this new experiment of Indian team. Fans started lashing out at the captain because of his own batting position, wherein the world’s best number 3 batsman decided to demote himself at number 4 to accommodate KL Rahul.

If messing up with a settled team is an art Kohli-Shastri are PICASO brothers.#INDvsAUS

— ?? ? ? (@cricdrugs) January 14, 2020

Talking about how it all went at the Wankhede, Australia won the toss and asked India to bat in the first game of the series. Even though Kohli had already hinted about him playing at 4 in the press conference, fans still expected to see him coming at the fall of the first wicket.

However, it didn’t happen and walked in the inform KL Rahul who stitched together a fine partnership with Shikhar Dhawan. When things were going well with India, Rahul produced a false shot against the run of play which triggered a batting collapse.

https://twitter.com/k_vijayendra8/status/1217032462171172864?s=19

Kohli not the ideal No.4

Virat Kohli has scores of 16, 7, 12, 11, 3*, 4 and 9 at number 4 and yet he decided to come at 4 which didn’t go well with the fans who felt that the best batsman of the team should face as many balls as possible and Kohli shouldn’t try to fix something which isn’t broken.

Virat Kohli's last 7 innings at No.4:

Runs – 62.
Average – 10.33.
Strike Rate – 69.66.
Highest Score – 16.

— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) January 14, 2020

Kohli still has a very fine average of 56 batting at 4 but that still remains an irregular position for him. Virat also seems to have understood his mistake and pointed out that

“I don’t think it’s gone quite our way whenever I’ve batted at four. So we’ll have to probably rethink about that one”

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7TmOtSHpT4/?igshid=1fe4ydc5f7ejh

" People need to relax and not panic with one game. I am allowed to experiment a little bit and fail at times. Today was one of the days it didn’t come off " ~ Virat Kohli

— Broken Cricket (@BrokenCricket) January 15, 2020

No chance for experiment against Aussies

India vs Australia have always been a fierce rivalry and when two best sides take on each other, there is not much chance of experiments. Aussies bowlers showed Indians why experimenting against them is a bad idea.