IND vs AUS 2020: 'Virat Kohli's failure suggests Australia bowled very well' - Ramiz Raja

Former Pakistan batsman Ramiz Raja has opined that the quality of the Australian bowling performance in India's second innings in the first Test in the Adelaide could be gauged by Virat Kohli's failure to score runs.

He made this observation while talking about the Australian bowling destroying the Indian batting lineup in the Adelaide Test, in a video shared on his YouTube channel.

Ramiz Raja started by pointing out that India's batting debacle had taken everyone by surprise, saying in this regard:

"No one could have predicted that the third day of the Adelaide Test will be a statistical nightmare for India. It was a massive reality check for the Indian batting lineup."

The commentator reckoned that the current Indian batting lineup is not good enough to counter the bouncy conditions in Australia.

"There were a lot of problems. Batting against the bounce was not good, the positive intent was not seen, and this Indian batting lineup's capability is probably only to disappoint you," said Raja.

Ramiz Raja observed that India has been the most successful sub-continent team in Australia because of their batting might, an area that doesn't seem too strong at present. The former Pakistan player said in this regard:

"This batting lineup is weaker if we compare it to the previous tours because India is the only team from the sub-continent that has gone to Australia, and made them struggle and a lot of credit for that has to be given to their strong batting performances."

Ramiz Raja added the current Indian batsmen have a lot of technical deficiencies in their games which got exposed against a quality seam bowling attack.

"But here there are flaws and gaps in this batting lineup. Some of them have technical issues and for some others, their batting cannot cope against quality fast bowling, and that was what was seen," Raja observed.

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Ramiz Raja lauds Australia's bowlers for their impressive performance

The Australian fast bowlers consistently bowled at the right spot.

Ramiz Raja praised the Australian bowlers for continually bowling in the corridor of uncertainty and extracting movement off the pitch, saying in this regard:

"All the credit will have to be given to the Australian bowlers. They are all tall bowlers; they bowled the hard lengths, and the ball moved enough to take the outside edge of the bat."

Raja added that the Australian bowlers had the Indian batsmen struggling to gauge the bounce of the ball.

"They bowled at the length where you couldn't play the ball on the front foot or the back foot. And they had problems against bounce," observed Raja.

Ramiz Raja highlighted that it is always difficult for a batsman bred on placid sub-continental conditions to succeed on the bouncy tracks in Australia, saying in this regard:

"The Australian conditions challenge your DNA. You would have not played much cricket in such conditions. Your upbringing as a cricketer is on dead pitches from a batting point of view. So you don't have enough technicalities to tackle the bounce and movement."

Ramiz Raja stated that India need a few more players like Virat Kohli to do well in such conditions. He concluded by observing that the Indian captain's failure proved the efficacy of the Australian bowling attack.

"If you have one or two more players like Virat Kohli, then you could have survived. But Virat Kohli's failure suggests that Australia bowled very well," said Ramiz Raja.

Virat Kohli is technically the most equipped Indian batsman to play a counter-attacking game against Australia. However, with the Indian captain not available from the Melbourne Test onwards, the onus will be on the other experienced players like Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara to shoulder additional responsibility and lift the sagging team.