'I'm not going to defend him here' - Former India batter talks about Virat Kohli's struggles against spin during Sri Lanka series

Virat Kohli has been a fantastic player of the spin throughout his career. However, in an unfortunate turn of events, spinners dismissed him thrice in the ODI series against Sri Lanka. Former India player Dinesh Karthik opened up about this incident and said that the pitches were tricky, which caused Virat Kohli to be dismissed by the spinners. 

"In this series… let's admit. Be it Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma or anyone else. With a slightly semi-new ball, between overs 8-30, it's hard work. Nothing to worry about. Not too many pitches work that way, but it's been a tough pitch to play spinners. I'm not going to defend Virat Kohli here, but playing spin here is very hard," said Dinesh Karthik, as quoted by Cricbuzz.

It wasn't a good series for India or Kohli in general. Sri Lanka outplayed the Men in Blue in all the departments of the game, which is why they won the series. It was a dream series for the Island Nation as they created history after 27 years. However, India won the T20I series under Suryakumar Yadav, which was the only positive takeaway from the Sri Lanka tour. 

We can take advantage because we have good spinners: Maheesh Theekshana

Sri Lanka's one of the best spinners, Maheesh Theekshana, took a dig at the Indian team for playing on flat surfaces throughout the year and winning games. However, that isn't the case in Sri Lanka since the pitches favored the spinners more, and playing on spin tracks becomes tricky. Hence, they were sure that they could win the ODI series since they had some really good spinners in the squad. 

"They (India) usually play on good wickets and small boundaries in India. We knew playing in Premadasa, if there’s little bit turn, we can take advantage because we have good spinners,” said Theekshana as quoted by Hindustan Times.