{"id":46200,"date":"2018-11-03T10:51:51","date_gmt":"2018-11-03T10:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/?p=46200"},"modified":"2018-11-03T10:51:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T10:51:51","slug":"virat-kohli-is-a-superstar-who-can-keep-test-cricket-alive-says-graeme-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/virat-kohli-is-a-superstar-who-can-keep-test-cricket-alive-says-graeme-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Virat Kohli is a superstar who can keep Test cricket alive, says Graeme Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Virat Kohli is a \u201csuperstar\u201d who will be at the forefront of keeping Test cricket alive, feels former South African captain Graeme Smith.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The year 2018 has been great for the Indian captain, who has produced some exceptional ODI feats including the fastest to reach the 10,000 club, elevating his stature as the best batsman in the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that he loves Test cricket and puts in performances, it keeps Test cricket relevant in a country that loves the game with IPL and other T20s. It\u2019s huge for the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs long as Virat keeps promoting Test cricket as an icon and superstar, we all have the chance to keep the game relevant,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, who played 117 Tests while captaining South Africa in 109 of them, criticised the Kookaburra balls for adding to Test cricket\u2019s misery.<\/p>\n<p>This has come at a time when members of the Indian team, including Kohli, who have slammed the quality of SG balls.<\/p>\n<p>Terming the quality of Kookaburra balls as huge issue, Smith said: \u201cThe Kookaburra balls in particular is letting people down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a ball that softens and does not swing for a long period of time. I think Test cricket cannot afford to have boring draws.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt needs the ball to spin, it needs the ball to swing and movement in the air. It needs competition between the bat and the ball so as to keep Test cricket stay relevant,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>There has been a lot of debate over tweaking Test cricket to keep it alive and the 37-year-old South African offered a \u201csimple solution\u201d to bring in more competitiveness in the format.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately in Test cricket, we have lost a few dynamic teams. There are teams who are going through transformation phases. I believe if world cricket is competitive all formats will work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTest cricket is the ultimate test of your ability and skill and your physical state. The challenge is to get competitive teams outside the top three. Then if we add some of the nuances people will start take seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>India will be in Australia for a full tour starting next month with an aim to script a maiden series Down Under.<\/p>\n<p>In their recent overseas tour to England, India suffered a 1-4 drubbing while earlier this year they lost 1-2 in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Showering praise on India\u2019s pace attack, Smith said India have it in them to win Down Under this time.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Virat Kohli is a \u201csuperstar\u201d who will be at the forefront of keeping Test cricket alive, feels former South African captain Graeme Smith. The year 2018 has been great for the Indian captain, who has produced some exceptional ODI feats including the fastest to reach the 10,000 club, elevating his stature as the best batsman [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46202,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46200\/revisions\/46202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}