India batters slip for the fourth time in ICC events
2019 ODI World Cup, 2016 World T20 and 2017 Champions Trophy: Different formats, same story
{ VIRAT KOHLI } INDIA SKIPPER You have to reassess and replan and understand what dynamics work for the team and how we can be fearless. Bring in right people who have right mindset to perform
MUMBAI: No captain has won India more Tests (36) than Virat Kohli. No one has a better winning record (59.01 %) than him other than Ajinkya Rahane (80 %) who has led intermittently in five matches. With the World Test Championship (WTC) final, Kohli went past MS Dhoni to have led India in most matches. It was befitting that the first crack at earning the tag of world champions in Test cricket’s 144year history came Kohli’s way.
Kohli’s high-performance unit—a mix of outliers such as Rishabh Pant and Jasprit Bumrah and seasoned long format heroes in Ravichandran Ashwin, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane—fought hard in conditions that suited India the least. Especially against New Zealand for whom England can feel like a home away from home.
On paper, India had more firepower, greater all-round depth. They would have been favourites at home or anywhere in Asia or Australia. But against New Zealand with overcast sky made for just the perfect storm to unsettle India.
For Kohli, India’s all-formats captain, this is the fourth failure to win an ICC title. And although circumstances differ when formats change, there is a common thread in each of those defeats—batters floundering every time.
In conditions similar to the WTC final, India lost the 2019 ODI World Cup semi-final. India head coach Ravi Shastri had pinned it down to half-an-hour of poor batting when the famed top order disintegrated against the moving ball.
That was two years ago, but go back a further two years and didn’t the same top order hobble in the Champions Trophy final as Mohammed Amir got the ball to wobble? It was again a case of a poor half-an-hour of batting but that’s where finals are lost and won. And in Kohli’s first ICC event as captain, the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup of 2016, India were simply not prepared to match the brand of T20 cricket a far superior West Indies team was playing at the time.
Big three bats silent
Back to the Ageas Bowl where Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara, who has earned his stripes for having the best defensive game in the side, knew they had to play out the opening session of the reserve day. Both were sent back by New Zealand’s tall quick Kyle Jamieson. It happened quickly, in half-an-hour.
Kohli, Pujara and Rahane, the three batting constants in the
Test side now, don’t have numbers to be proud of in the last four series. Over a spread of New Zealand, Australian, Indian and English pitches, Kohli has averaged 24.64, Pujara 26.35 and Rahane 28.15. Between the three, there is only Rahane’s Melbourne hundred to show for. In the business end of the WTC cycle, it was not their batting blades but the less seasoned and less risk-averse bats of Rohit Sharma and Pant that carried India to the final.
“We will certainly take those decisions and have those conversations in the near future. It’s not something that we will wait for a year or so because you have to plan ahead,” Kohli said on building a bigger talent pool of middle-order Test batsmen. “You have to reassess and plan and understand what dynamics work for the team and how we can be fearless and bring in the right people who have the right mindset to perform.”
Better plans But Kohli would be disappointed in how he fell to Jamieson. Wary of Jamieson’s nip backer that got him in the first innings, he was out fishing outside the off stump in the first hour on Wednesday.
“We definitely need to work out better plans in terms of understanding how to score runs. We have to stay in sync with the momentum of the game and not let the game drift away too much,” said Kohli.
If the strike-rate talk picks up pace, Pujara’s approach will be questioned again. “Sometimes you just accept it and move forward when you don’t get big scores on tough pitches. As a batter I always feel, it all evens out,” Pujara said recently. But barring the remarkable show of tenacity in Sydney and Brisbane, India’s No.3 has been unable to craft an innings of note. Pujara would be worried how Jack Leach’s left-arm spin repeatedly caught him at the crease in India. In the WTC final, Jamieson forced him to nick one behind the wickets on Day 6.
Except Melbourne, Rahane has gone through a scoring lull for 15 months during which Neil Wagner has twice shown how tentative he is in playing the short ball. Rajane wouldn’t be pleased with his returns against the spinning ball at home either.
“I don’t think there’s any technical difficulty as such, but I think it’s more down to game awareness and being a little more brave and putting bowlers under pressure,” said Kohli.
Mental or technical, Kohli and his celebrated batting order needs to find solutions quickly, as another five-Test inquisition against James Anderson, Stuart Broad and the Dukes ball is not far away.