England’s opening batsman, Keaton Jennings, said that he has found nothing wrong in Virat Kohli’s buoyant celebration after India got rid of the opposition captain, Joe Root.
Cricket news: Kohli mocked Joe Root’s mic drop celebration after getting the latter run out with a direct hit
The run out was the turning moment of the game as England collapsed and lost six wickets for 67 runs, collapsing from a position of 216 for three to make it to stumps on 285 for nine.
Jonny Bairstow had hit a delivery of Ashwin to the leg side where Kohli chased the ball. The batsmen called for a couple, but Kohli picked up the ball and three it off-balanced to the non-striker’s end for a direct hit as Joe Root was well short of his crease.
Kohli celebrated with a couple of flying kisses and then getting his own version of mic drop celebration which was a mockery of the one Root had done in the ODI series decider game at Trent Bridge.
It was an impressive fielding and Kohli’s interpretation of the mic drop was amusing, but ICC might see it a little wrong. However Jennings, who scored 42 in the first innings, believes no line was crossed during the celebration.
“Everybody is entitled to celebrate how they want to,” said Jennings. “He celebrated, and that’s cool.”
After winning the toss and deciding to bat first, Jennings and Root took the score to 98 for one. When Jennings was on 10, he was dropped by Rahane at fourth slip.
He eventually got out when he inside edged a delivery from Shami, and the ball spun from the leg stump to hit the off stump. Though it was unfortunate, Jennings believes he is himself to be blamed for the dismissal.
“I suppose the best players in the world make those lucky breaks or have them go in their favour,” he said. “That’s the way it is. I’ve made an error, misjudged the ball, and it’s ended up in my stumps.”
Jennings was however not sure if England had missed an opportunity to get the home advantage early on in the five-match series.
“Yes and no. At the same stage that has been a little bit of a missed opportunity for us. But then you look off 35 overs of cricket, off the old ball, there still seems to be a bit of lateral movement. I suppose from our point of view we’ve got 300 on the board and if we can come out and be pretty relentless in the way we go about hitting our areas at some point tomorrow, you don’t actually know what a good score it is. On one hand, it is a missed opportunity, but on the other you don’t know what a good score is until both sides have batted.”
Jennings was also all praise for Ravichandran Ashwin, India’s lone spinner in the game who took four for 60 from his 25 overs and was the pick of the bowlers.
“He’s a very good bowler. He lands the ball in the right place and varies his pace. He bowled nicely today. At the end of the day we come up with a game plan in order to play off-spinners as a left-hander. Bowled a good ball to Cooky this morning, maybe that came down to a bit of tackiness in the surface. I’ve played him a couple of times, played against him at Worcester last year, so it’s not the first time I’ve played against him and hopefully I get many more opportunities to.”