He is the only batsman dragging his team forward. He is facing a superb attack. History isn’t with him. And yet Virat Kohli always looked like he was having the time of his life in Perth
Sidharth Monga in Perth16-Dec-2018He stands alone at the non-striker’s end. He looks at the big screen for a replay of the dismissal. He then looks back. Don’t know at what. After the replay, he turns his head to the field, staring blankly in middle distance. Stands motionless. Legs crossed. One hand on his waist. The other on the top of the bat handle. You can’t say where he is looking. You can’t say what he is thinking. He stays like that for what seems like a minute. Maybe more. Not even batting an eyelid.Not far away, Australia are celebrating and having a drink. He finally sees Rishabh Pant, the new batsman, walk past the huddle, and steps out of his meditative state to join his partner. He had a partner now. Did he? Back to two against 11. Was it?***These is such a deja vu to this. Virat Kohli is batting on a hundred after India have lost the toss in an away Test. Centurion, Birmingham, and now in Perth Stadium. The story is going to be the same. In Centurion, 279 of India’s 307 runs come when Kohli was at the wicket. They fall behind by 28, a decisive deficit. In Birmingham, 220 of the 274 come with him at the wicket. India fall behind by 13. They lose.Here, in Perth, on a difficult pitch, having seen Australia get to 326 thanks to some ordinary selection and some ordinary bowling in patches, Kohli watched Australia claim their complimentary vouchers, the openers, either side of lunch. He has a customised plan – yet another one – to tackle. He has a personal nemesis in Pat Cummins, off whom he has never hit a boundary in Test cricket but has been dismissed twice. His side is playing only three reliable batsmen but four No. 11s.Virat Kohli wasn’t happy after being given out•Getty ImagesThe new plan first. Starting Adelaide, Australia have looked to bowl straight at Kohli, deny him that cover drive, make him keep defending without giving on-side runs, and then throw in the odd sucker ball. It worked in Adelaide.Josh Hazlewood tries to execute this pre-decided plan. He bowls straight, full but not a half-volley, but Kohli leans into it, plays a check drive on the up, and places it between mid-on and the bowler. Then Hazlewood bowls two half-volleys in the next over. Both go for fours.That’s the thing with plans for Kohli. You have to be really precise or he punishes you. The area you are aiming for is so small and that only leads to errors. Errors beget errors. And before you know it, Kohli is up and running. He is 18 off 10 already. Australia have to change their plan. Go back to bowling good balls in the channel outside off, and risk the cover drive.
Kohli is in his own trance. He is hit on the arm more than once, hurts his hand while diving, is hit in the ribs, on the unpadded area above the knee but he seems to be enjoying it.
Cummins bowls some mean ones too. This is personal, like it was with James Anderson in England. Kohli doesn’t want to get out at the best of times, but he is particularly determined to not do so against Cummins.In Cummins’ six-over spell, he takes just three runs off 28 deliveries, absolutely hell-bent on not taking any risk outside off. This is a batsman humble enough to accept a bowler is bowling well and assured enough to know his game can see him through this period. There’s only five attacking shots in that spell, but there too he has not gone out of his way to miss a fielder. Only four times is he not in control. Against the most threatening bowler in the opposition, during his freshest spell, he is not in control only one in seven balls – 14% against the 20% overall rate in the match.4:41
Laxman: ‘We are all running out of superlatives to describe Kohli’
This is high-quality defensive batting from either end, but India’s scoring is at a standstill. The worst they can do now is allow Nathan Lyon to hold one end up so the three quicks can take turns from the other. Kohli finally finds the cover drive, against Lyon’s attacking line outside off, on a pitch with treacherous bounce. His wrists keep the ball down, the gap is found, and he has hit his first boundary in 67 balls.Cummins comes back for a spell post tea, beats his outside edge right away and draws two bat-pad opportunities with no short leg to lap it up because, well, Kohli has forced them to change their plan of attack. When Pujara gets out, India have hit only six boundaries in 38.2 overs, four of them in one spurt. Ajinkya Rahane is about to launch a counterattack. From ultra-attacking to ultra-defensive to ultra-attacking again, this Indian innings doesn’t have a definitive rhythm. Kohli, though, is in his own trance. He is hit on the arm more than once, hurts his hand while diving, is hit in the ribs, on the uncovered area above the knee, but he seems to be enjoying it.
History is against him. His sides’ collective batting form is against him. A high-quality bowling attack is against him. It can be easy to tire of all this and play a soft shot.
Kohli and Rahane end the day with hope for India; hope that if they can push on, they can put an inexperienced Australian batting line-up under extreme pressure. And then Rahane gets out in the first over of the third morning. And suddenly it dawns again. India were into bonus-runs category once again. Hanuma Vihari is an unknown, Pant, as of now, unable to score risk-free runs, and the tail after that. Almost every over, the physio is coming out to treat Kohli. Painkillers are popped.Kohli continues to enjoy being in the middle. He is trying desperately to change the familiar story. Watchful against good balls, cover-driving every time he gets a chance, running as hard as he can, trying to drag the others with him now. History is against him. His sides’ collective batting form is against him. A high-quality bowling attack is against him. It can be easy to tire of all this and play a soft shot. Go into a shell. Give up bothering about the rest of it lest it eats away at your batting too.***Sachin Tendulkar trudges off after being dismissed for 116•Jack Atley/Getty ImagesThere’s a famous photo of Sachin Tendulkar, accepting the applause from a Melbourne crowd in 1999-2000, but the frame has only Tendulkar and a flock of seagulls in it. The photographer saw it as a metaphor for Tendulkar in a lone battle against a dominating side. It is a little like Kohli standing alone, waiting for a new partner in Centurion, Birmingham, Perth. Exhausted from carrying the side, Tendulkar gave up captaincy soon after that series. Kohli somehow has bottomless reserves, and a much better bowling unit than Tendulkar.Once again, 243 of India’s 283 runs have come with him at the wicket. Once again, India seem headed towards a familiar defeat after having given up a 43-run first-innings lead. It can be easy to go into a shell, to not be bothered, but he comes out charged up in the next innings in the field. He is living every ball once again. He is shouting, appealing, sledging, jumping up and down, getting the crowd excited, telling the opposition captain he can’t afford to mess up this time. There is no air of the condemned around him. He is looking forward to the challenge once again. That is what makes Kohli.
