Indian team needs to back Kohli to win Tests

It’s never easy for one man to win a Test match, that too on foreign soil. While Virat Kohli scored 149 and 51 in the Test match at Edgbaston, none of the other batsmen managed to hit at least a half century. Only Hardik Pandya hit 31 in the second innings, the second highest score among the rest of the Indian batsmen!

If a Test match has to be won, it cannot be Kohli versus England, instead India will have to play as a team.

Indian fans might argue that the 31-run victory was a close loss, and that their team were within reach of a victory. This slender margin was only because the Indian bowlers bowled well despite letting 20-year-old Sam Curran hit those invaluable 63 runs in England’s second innings.

Determination to succeed is vital in a battle that is expected to be tough.

Kohli wanted to silence his critics who had repeatedly pointed out that he had once failed in England.

It was his determination that he scored 200 out of India’s total of 436 runs from both the innings. It was his fighting spirit that pushed him to record 45.87 per cent of India’s runs in this Test match.

Every batsman must show a similar willpower although they have great skills and have piled loads of runs in Test matches.

One of cricket’s hottest debate has been whether Team India can prove to be champions abroad and not mere kings on home wickets.

Every Indian team member knows that to beat England in England is vital for the morale of the team and that everything must be done to achieve it.

By surrendering their wickets meekly to England bowlers, and that without putting up a fight merely showed that their verve wasn’t as strong as that of Kohli.

The first Test was undoubtedly a spectacular battle for supremacy. It showed how intensely Test matches can be fought.

Rise to the challenge

A failure in both innings doesn’t make anyone a poor batsman, but like Kohli, other batsmen too must rise to the challenge. If Curran, playing only his second Test match, could do it when all his top order batsmen failed, then India’s experienced players too must fight back.

The first Test was undoubtedly a spectacular battle for supremacy. It showed how intensely Test matches can be fought. Players who sparkle in such battles will be long remembered for their performance.

Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin wanted to prove that as a spinner he can shine abroad, and his figures of seven for 121 at Edgbaston is the third best match-figures by an Indian in a Test match in England after B.S. Chandrasekhar in 1971 and EAS Prasanna in 1967. Like Kohli, Ashwin was determined to silence those who had doubts on his performance in England.

If they are able to display a fierce determination as a team, then they can hope to erase the tag of being called champions only on home wickets.