BORE HIM, BOUNCE HIM AND WORK ON HIS EGO
My three-point plan to capture Kohli’s wicket . . .
ENGLAND might be starting to think: ‘How on earth do we get Virat Kohli out?’ But you always have to believe there is something you can do, otherwise there is little point going out there tomorrow in the second ODI in Cuttack.
Conventional thinking is not working so you have to plan outside the box. England and every other side who have been here in the last year have faced this problem.
Perhaps Eoin Morgan has to take one side of the field out of the equation, go round the wicket and hide the ball outside off stump while telling his bowlers that he does not mind if they go for the odd wide or two.
Then they could try to keep him off strike a bit more than they did in Pune on Sunday by allowing the lad at the other end a single off the fifth or sixth ball, or bring the field up to Kohli towards the end of the over to try to make him play a big shot that could lead to his downfall.
An option England may well employ, if conditions dictate, is to bring Liam Plunkett into the side, put three men out and go for the short stuff. I would also like them to try to get stuck into him a bit verbally because he can have a short fuse. Try to work on his ego, like teams would attempt to do with Kevin Pietersen. England’s problem is that, since the last World Cup, their bowling has not progressed anything like as much as a batting line-up which has become the best they have ever had in one- day cricket. They have variations in a left-armer David Willey and a wrist spinner Adil Rashid — but the attack is a bit one-paced.
The bottom line is that England are dealing with an incredibly good player, a dangerous combination of a batsman with a lot of natural ability who is also constantly pushing himself to be the best he can be.
Kohli wants to overcome any challenge and he will never say ‘I can’t do it’, as was seen when he won the first ODI for India after they were 63 for four chasing 351 to win.
The India captain is brilliant at reading a match situation, at least when he is batting, and I believe he is the best chaser of a total in oneday history. Sachin Tendulkar had great personal statistics but Kohli is all about the team and he is a real competitor, as you see when India play football before a game.
I am convinced Kohli’s hundred on Sunday would have meant nothing to him if India had lost the game by 10 runs after he got out. Some people say that but he really does mean it. He is all about winning.
Kohli is also supremely fit and has changed the culture of Indian cricket to the point where 31-year-old Kedar Jadhav looked out of place on Sunday when he started cramping and his captain had to talk him through his innings.
We worry in England about the impact Test captaincy might have on a player like Joe Root who is so important with the bat in all formats, but Kohli is now in charge of all three India teams and is constantly in demand here.
Whenever you put on the TV in India Kohli is in every ad, you pick up any magazine and he’s all over it and you look at any billboard and there he is again. The number of people who want a piece of him is extraordinary. That’s why, as he told me when I interviewed him for Sky, the key for him is not having too many people in his life pulling him in too many directions. He just has two or three very close friends.
How good is he? Well, he is the only player in world cricket to average 50 in all three formats. The only thing he hasn’t done is score runs in England and he knows if he wants to be up there with the greats he will have to put that right before long.
That’s why he wants to play some county cricket before India’s next tour because he wants to prove he can deal with the moving ball and score as well as he does at home.
You only have to look at social media to see how much Kohli’s peers respect him — and the short-arm jab that sent Chris Woakes for six in Pune was one of the best cricket strokes I have ever seen — so he is unquestionably the best batsman in the world right now.
The man is something special but he’s also human. And England have five more chances on this tour to prove they can come up with a way to stop him.