The sight of Virat Kohli blasting his way to 93 runs in six innings during India’s earth-shattering defeat against New Zealand sent shockwaves among his adoring crowd. Could the vibrations have also been felt by Lord?
Because if Kohli has a poor series in Australia, starting in Perth on November 22, Test cricket may soon have seen the last of him – and that could mean no trip to England next summer, and smaller receipts on day five if India chasing 300 and Kohli is not there to help them over the line. For the ECB, his absence is not something to think about.
Kohli won’t exactly be happy with the thought either. But then he had some time to get used to it.
Two years ago, at Edgbaston, as England began their record chase of 378 in the postponed fifth Test, he suffered the indignity of being sledded by Alex Lees, who had lost his Test place by the end of the summer.
According to Lees, Kohli had given him an earful out of a slip – ‘pretty bad cricket talk’. Determined not to be bullied, Lees – who had been studying the forms guide – retaliated with: “I’ve had two children since you last scored a century.”
Virat Kohli failed to cover himself in glory during India’s seismic Test defeat against New Zealand
As he battled his way to a lackluster 93 runs in six innings, Kohli could still be a major doubt to play against England next year
Alex Lees taunted Kohli with his run count at Edgbaston in 2022 and two years later there is hardly any improvement
When Kohli ended his three-and-a-half-year wait for a Test hundred against Australia in Ahmedabad in March 2023, and then struck against the West Indies in Port of Spain four months later, the Lees jibe could be put aside.
And yet they remain Kohli’s only two Test centuries since the start of 2020. Meanwhile, a player who was once the leading member of the Fab Four is struggling to pay his subs: over the past five years, Kane Williamson has averaged 64 points. , Joe Root 55, Steve Smith 45 …and Kohli 31.
Put another way, he has earned less on average in that time than Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley, who are often accused of enjoying sheltered status in the weird and wonderful world of Bazball. And if there is one cricketing country that is aware of the protected status, it is India, with its cultural reverence for seniority and hierarchy.
One or two critics expressed concern. Sanjay Manjrekar dared to suggest that Kohli had ‘misread’ the length of Mitchell Santner’s full toss that bowled him during the second Test in Pune. Dinesh Karthik wondered if his defense had been compromised by too much white-ball cricket.
But the response from Sunil Gavaskar, Indian cricket’s most strident cheerleader, spoke in favor of those – and there are plenty – who prefer to bury their heads in the sand. Kohli, he said, was going through a ‘bad patch’ and needed some more luck.
Of course, a five-match tour of Australia in defense of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which India has held for the past eight years, could well be the challenge to get Kohli’s juices flowing.
What a boost it would be for India if Kohli could recapture his 2014-2015 form on Australian soil
His four centuries Down Under in 2014-15 are among the great achievements of modern batsmanship. And he averages 54 on Australian soil, where the straight pitches and lack of lateral movement enhance his strengths; in England, where the bowlers get more help, he averages 33.
But he will have to reverse a downward trend – and he will have to do it against Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon.
In Kohli’s favor, paradoxically, will be location – because if there is one factor at the root of his decline, it is the state of India’s testing grounds.
Willing to ensure that Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and others can take down opponents at will, they helped build a remarkable home record: 18 consecutive wins in 12 years, which only ended when New Zealand won 3-0 last week.
But the pitches also helped the opposition spinners, with unintended consequences: Test by Test, Kohli’s confidence and technique have eroded. Left arm twisting in particular has caused him problems, with two of the breed – New Zealand’s Santner and Ajaz Patel – recently keeping him quiet.
New Zealand created history with their series win against India in their own backyard
Left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner (left) was remarkably good at keeping Kohli quiet
In an excellent piece on ESPNcricinfo, Indian journalist Sidharth Monga points out how Kohli has become cricket’s answer to Jekyll and Hyde. Since 2017, Kohli’s batting average on home pitches where the spinners average more than 24 is 90; while the spinners averaged less than 24, his average has dropped to 20. Going by the discrepancy between his records in Australia and England, Kohli is at his best when he can hit through the line.
So it seems clear that India’s strategy has come at a cost, robbing him of his aura and forcing him to play almost all of his Test cricket in conditions not of his own choosing. His captain, Rohit Sharma – who scored just 91 runs in six innings against New Zealand, and who turned 37 in April – has paid a similar price.
It is also true that no cricketer since Sachin Tendulkar has played under such scrutiny, and no Indian cricketer has had a more high-profile marriage than Kohli, to film star Anushka Sharma. At the feverish intersection of cricket and Bollywood, India’s two big draws, he tries to smooth over his problems. Every man has his breaking point.
Despite everything, Kohli’s may not have arrived yet. He turns 36 on Tuesday and Tendulkar was still playing Test cricket at the age of 40. And the game needs him. It has often been said that while Kohli publicly proclaims the primacy of Test cricket, the format does not have to worry too much about the growth of T20 franchises.
The 36-year-old cannot escape the public eye due to his status and that of his wife – film star Anushka Sharma
The match needs Kohli and should he falter against Australia, India’s match against England will be a quieter affair
And without him? As events in Australia will undoubtedly confirm in the coming weeks, Test cricket is a more colorful spectacle when Kohli is around, strutting his stuff, barking his advice, driving a fast bowler through the covers – furious one minute, sublime the next next.
If the Australians prevail, India’s Test series in England next summer could be a quieter affair, both on the field and in the stands.
Livingstone plays without limits
Have England finally unlocked Liam Livingstone’s potential? Previous regimes would have been fed up with his acts of disappearance at crucial moments – probably after last year’s 50-overs World Cup in India, and certainly after this year’s T20 edition in the Caribbean.
Liam Livingstone was given the reins in the Caribbean and more than took on the task
This regime flirted with the idea by dropping him from the one-day squad, before coming full circle and handing him the captain’s armband. On Sunday in Antigua, he played one of England’s best ODI innings: 124 not out from 85 balls, including nine of the 27 sixes he has hit in both white-ball formats since the home series against Australia in September.
And his renaissance couldn’t have come at a better time: with England routinely forced to pick under-strength white-ball teams due to a ridiculous schedule, Livingstone is wallpapering the boundaries in spectacular fashion. Hats off to England for recognizing that responsibility comes with abuse of power.
Anderson’s telling omission
Jimmy Anderson suggested that ‘no one really pays attention to the World Test Championship’ during an interview about his new autobiography, Finding the Edge. He left out two words: ‘in England’.
Because elsewhere the race for the WTC final at Lord’s next summer is shaping up to be impossibly tight, with the top five teams separated by 8.33 percentage points.
Jimmy Anderson may not attach much importance to the WTC final, but a whole host of other teams do
There’s plenty not to like about the WTC: its structure is a horrible mess. But it has given context to this winter’s matches, as England will well remember when they begin their series in New Zealand later this month, who now have Lord’s in their sights after the miracle in India.
Black Caps write history
Does any statistic better sum up the historic imbalance of Test cricket than the fact that New Zealand had never won three matches in a series before?
This was partly because it took a while for them to flourish at Test level, and partly because they were fobbed off with two-match series. I hope the victory in India changes perception.