Kohli did not focus on India winning
Indian captain was more obsessed with Tim Paine rather than getting his gameplan right
made on the field. As it is now it’s a guessing game off the field because of the for-shortening effect of the cameras and sending these decisions to be reviewed only causes more controversy.
In the end though it wasn’t so much a captaincy failure as the inability of the rest of the batting line-up to provide enough support for Kohli. At the moment India have two black holes -- the top of the batting order and the last four wickets. This is a big handicap to overcome against a strong bowling attack.
Adding to India’s run scoring woes is Rishabh Pant’s failure to grasp the measure of his batting talent. If he’s going to continue trying to hit Nathan Lyon into the next state he won’t make the contributions he should with the bat and this just deepens the lower order black hole.
Somewhere between Pant’s suicidal approach to dealing with Lyon and the passive resistance of the bulk of the batsmen, is a sensible method to assert authority over the successful offspinner. If India don’t find that middle ground they are in danger of squandering yet another overseas series.
The other point of conjecture regarding the Indian camp was the non-selection of a spinner. I doubt Ravindra Jadeja would have made much difference to the bowling effort as he is more of a skidder and therefore he wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of the extreme bounce. He may have added some runs but you can’t pick bowlers for the number of runs they make.
Having fought so hard to gain the advantage in Adelaide, India have now surrendered the upper hand (not without a fight) and they’ll have to work extremely hard to regain superiority.
As happened in both South Africa and England, India’s main point of concern is batting support for Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara.