One of the rare sights on a cricket field was witnessed last night (October 10) at Guwahati's Barsapara Cricket Stadium during India's second Twenty20 International match against Australia.
The unthinkable occurence was that India captain Virat Kohli exited the playing field without scoring a run. Whenever the right-hander walks out to bat, expectations rise among team-mates and fans. He has been in tremendous form with the willow that a failure is unusual.
And yes it did happen on Tuesday night. It was Kohli's first-ever duck in T20Is. The man who inflicted that misery on the skipper was rookie left-arm paceman Jason Behrendorff.
Also read: Australian team bus attacked
It was Behrendorff's day as he dismantled India's top order with figures of 4/21. Rohit Sharma (8), Shikhar Dhawan (2), Kohli (0) and Manish Pandey (6) were his victims.
Behrendorff did a commendable job with the ball considering this was only second T20I of his career, having made debut against India in the previous game in Ranchi.
India were reeling at 27/4 and eventually bowled out for 118. Australia chased down the target successfully to level the three-match rubber 1-1.
Kohli set a world record as he had not collected a duck in his previous 47 T20I innings. This the best ever streak of a batsman without scoring a zero in the shorter format of the game at the international level.
Pakistan's Shoaib Malik is second best, going 40 T20I innings without scoring a duck. The next was Yuvraj Singh of India with 39 visits to the crease.
The right-hander attempted a flick and had an inside-egde which was collected by the bowler Behrendorff himself much to the disappointment of the crowd.
Kohli averages 52.91 in T20Is. In 52 matches (48 innings) so far, he has accumulated 1,852 runs. His highest score is 90 not out.
India and Australia teams will now travel to Hyderabad for the series-decider on Friday (October 13). The hosts won the preceding ODI rubber 4-1.
