3 times when team India lost a test because of Kohli's bizarre team selection

Virat Kohli is known to be a tactically shrewd captain who always leads from the front both with the bat and in the field. The Indian skipper's relentless aggression has been the biggest source of inspiration for the players since he took over from M.S. Dhoni in 2014. Very rarely you would see Kohli being bogged down on a cricket field.

Kohli first led India in test cricket in Adelaide in 2014 where he scored twin hundreds in what turned out to be a narrow defeat. After Dhoni's retirement, Kohli led the team in the Sydney test in the same series and that was the start of his captaincy journey.

The Delhi-born lad is a very aggressive captain who likes to back his bowlers all the time. However, in the recent times, Kohli has been criticized for making bizarre calls as a captain which has resulted in India losing crucial matches.

Let us take a look at 3 such instances when team India suffered because of Kohli's wrong choice of players:

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#3 India vs Australia, Pune (2017)

Jayant Yadav has not played for India after February 2017

It was the start of the much-anticipated India vs Australia test series in the brand new MCA International stadium in Pune. Hopes were high as the fans expected the Indians to decimate the Aussies and win comfortably. The pitch for this game was underprepared and turning square from Day 1.

In such conditions, Kohli surprisingly opted to play Jayant Yadav as a third spinner at the expense of triple-centurian Karun Nair, who seemed to be the obvious choice at no.6. The general saying that goes around is: you play an extra batsman on a rank turner to add cushion to the batting line-up.

There is no point in playing five bowlers when the innings is not going to last 80 overs anyways. Kohli's decision of not playing an extra batsman costed India dearly as the hosts were bowled out for 105 and 107 in the two innings, thereby slumping to a humiliating 333-run defeat.

Jayant contributed for only two of the twenty wickets, as the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja wrecked havoc on the Australian batting line-up. The Haryana born cricketer has played in only two tests after this game and has been out of the Indian side since the start of 2017.

#2 India vs South Africa, Cape Town (2018)

Kohli dropped India's best overseas test batsman Ajinkya Rahane in the Cape Town test

India was playing outside the sub-continent after a long time when they toured South Africa in January 2018. India's struggles overseas have been well documented, with particularly their batting being the Achilles heel.

In the light of all this, Kohli chose to drop Ajinkya Rahane for the first test against the Proteas. Despite failing against Sri Lanka at home in 2017, Rahane, by far had been India's most impressive batsman in the past few overseas tours. His ability to score runs in tough and challenging conditions was never been in question.

Yet, the Indian skipper preferred Rohit Sharma, whose test career has never got going. As a result, India lost the test by 72 runs and Rohit Sharma failed miserably with the bat as he notched up scores of 10 and 11 in the two innings.

Surely, Rahane's calm head was missed!

#1 India vs England, Edgbaston (2018)

What was Kohli thinking while dropping someone as reliable as Pujara?

Cheteshwar Pujara has been India's prime no.3 batsman for the past 7-8 years now. He is known to hold one end like a solid rock when the going gets tough for other batsmen. Understanding the challenge at hand, Pujara arrived early in England to play County Cricket for Yorkshire in order to acclimatize himself with the tough conditions.

However, Pujara's stint in County cricket with the Yorkshire did not help him earn a place in the Indian team. Instead, captain Kohli decided to go with the attacking pair of Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul, both of whom had scored heavily in the IPL.

T20 form really cannot be taken into consideration while selecting playing XI for an overseas test match and it was absurd on Kohli's part to leave someone like Pujara out. Except for Kohli himself, every other Indian batsman struggled to get past the score of 30 in the test match and showed how important Pujara was for the Indian cause.