England’s legendary pacer James Anderson admitted that he found Virat Kohli more challenging to bowl to than Sachin Tendulkar. The 42-year-old explained that while he had success against Kohli during the latter’s first England tour in 2014, dismissing him became increasingly difficult in later series as Kohli evolved into a much-improved batter.
Over the course of his career, Anderson dismissed Kohli seven times and Tendulkar nine times in Test matches. Speaking to talkSPORT, he shared his perspective on facing both Indian greats.
“I had some success early against Kohli. The first time he came to England, I think it was 2014, he had a weakness outside off stump and I really exploited that. The next time I played against him, he had obviously gone away and worked on that and it was like bowling at a different player.”
“He had really taken his game to a different level and made it very difficult for not just me, but for the bowlers, in general. I think I got him out maybe 4-5 times the first series and then didn’t get him out in the next series I played against him.”
He further continued:
“Against Sachin, for example, I did not feel like that it was that sort of shift in dominance. With Kohli, there was definitely a shift and I found him a difficult player to bowl at. He also had that steely mindset, he wanted to get into a battle, he was very competitive and after that initial success, it was pretty difficult to come up against.”
“Had more on-field words with Kohli than Tendulkar”- Anderson
James Anderson pointed out Virat Kohli’s animated personality and the way he reacted as captain when his bowlers took wickets. He also shared that he had more on-field verbal exchanges with Kohli compared to Sachin Tendulkar, whom he largely avoided engaging in conversation during matches.
Anderson said:
“I think with someone like Kohli, he obviously was a slightly different character to Sachin. Sachin was very mild-mannered, very calm at the crease and Kohli was very expressive with his emotions and wore his emotions on his sleeve, you could kinda see it. You saw that with his captaincy, when he celebrated wickets, it really came out of him.”
“I tried as much as I could to take that out of it and just imagine him as a right-handed batter and not think too much about who it was. It was difficult at times and we had many battles on the field. I definitely had more verbal battles with Virat than with Sachin. I didn’t really say a lot to Sachin, I tried not to.”
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