IND vs AUS | In absence of Bumrah and Shami, Natarajan stood up and delivered, feels Virat Kohli

T Natarajan, who is also known as the 'Yorker King', has been the talk of the town with his glittering performances in the limited-overs leg of the Australia tour. He was the biggest positive for India in the T20I series as he led the Indian pace bowling attack despite the fact that Deepak Chahar and Shardul Thakur were more experienced than him.

The left-armer was known for his death bowling but there were question marks how would he fare in other phases but he put all the doubts to rest with commendable performance in different phases and was Virat Kohli's go-to-man in the three-match T20I series which India won 2-1. 

Winning skipper Virat Kohli, speaking in the press-conference, stated that Natarajan did a commendable job in the absence of Shami and Bumrah under pressure.

"Natarajan special mention for him as in absence of Bumrah and Shami. He is been the guy who has stood up and really delivered under pressure. And it's an outstanding fact that he playing his first game at the international level," Kohli said during a virtual press conference, reported ANI.

Kohli also reckons that the pacer can be an asset for India in next year's T20 World Cup. 

"He looks very composed and is a very hard-working guy and very humble too. I wish him all the best and a left-arm bowler is always an asset on the field and if he can be consistent it will be a great thing for us heading into the world cup next year," he said.

India missed a golden chance of getting out Wade when they took a DRS review rather late and had they taken the review right on time, Natarajan would have got the wicket of Australia's best batter on the day. Kohli stated that the replay was shown on the screen before 15 seconds and that shouldn't happen at the top-level.

"Yeah that LBW was is in a strange manner because we were still discussing whether the ball was going down or not and within 15 seconds the replay was on screen.

"And we decided to go for the review but the umpire said nothing can be done. These mistakes shouldn't be done at the highest level and in a very important game this could be very costly," he added.

The Indian skipper also hailed his side for bouncing back strongly after they lost the ODI series that too with quite a few new players.

"The fact that this was the squad who haven't had so much exposure at the international level from that point of view it was a very nice performance especially after losing first two ODIs we came back nicely in the third and showed belief," Kohli said.

"And we carried that momentum in the first T20Is fighting back till the last minute. Even today's game was also a close encounter. I think the stand out is the guys are not giving up. Someone is putting up their hand every time and making an impact for the team," he added.

India will now take on Australia in the Border-Gavaskar trophy from December 17.