IND vs SA: "My Two Favorites..." - David Bedingham Heaps Praise On Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli

South African batsman David Bedingham garnered a lot of headlines with his impressive half-century in his debut Test against India.

Bedingham played an innings of 56 runs from 68 balls and hit a total of seven fours and two sixes during his innings. Bedingham showed great aggressive intent and didn’t look nervous during his debut Test match.

During a recent interaction with PTI, David Bedingham opened up on how Indian batsmen Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli influenced him during his teenage days. Bedingham started to play first-class cricket when he was 21 years old and also had a record county season with Durham.

However, just like every story, David Bedingham has to go through a lot of ups and downs. During the early phase of his career, Bedingham met with a car accident due to which he had to be almost ruled out of cricket for one year. However, David Bedingham made an impressive comeback and scored a lot of runs while playing for Western Province.

David Bedingham opens up on Rohit-Kohli influence on his cricketing career

Bedingham has played a total of 87 first-class matches and has scored 6047 runs at an average of 49.56. Bedingham has also hit 18 hundreds followed by 23 half-centuries.

Opening up on the learnings that he has gained from Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, David Bedingham stated that their attitude inspired him during his teenage days. Also, Bedingham belonged to the same school where former South African greats Herchelle Gibbs and Jacques Kallis used to study.

David Bedingham said, “My two favourites among Indian players are Sharma and Kohli. I think when I was between 13-18, I was trying to mould my technique like theirs (Kallis and Gibbs) and when I had a bad game, I changed my technique to copy Kohli’s or try probably Sharma’s.”

David Bedingham will now play at the Sahara Park Newlands which is his home ground in the second Test match of the series from January 3. He will once again look to perform well and take South Africa to a win. He is also named in the Test squad for the New Zealand tour. The team consists of many new faces and will be led by Neil Brand.

Getting back to the IND vs SA Test series, South Africa were ruthless in the first Test played at the Super Sport Park and won the match by an innings and 32 runs. The South African trio of Kagiso Rabada, Nandre Burger, and Marco Jansen ripped through the Indian batting lineup and wrapped them up for 245 and 131 runs in both innings of the match.

The South African team also put up an excellent batting display as they were able to score 408 runs in their first innings in reply to India’s 245 runs. The Proteas gained a heavy 163-run first-innings lead and dismantled India in the second innings before they could take over their lead.

Now, when India take on the Proteas in Cape Town in the second Test, they will want to end the South African tour with a win and level the series 1-1.