With the clock about to strike 5 PM, only three deliveries remained until stumps of day one of the third and final Test between India and New Zealand. At that moment, a thought flashed in the mind – maybe we have seen the last bit of action on a day full of ebbs and flows. That assumption proved to be wrong as Virat Kohli was run out in a rather bizarre fashion. One of the mainstays of the Indian batting unit for many years tried to steal a non-existent single only for Matt Henry to effect a direct hit. Subsequently, replays showed that he was short of the crease.
So, why did Kohli look to sneak in such a risky single? As he was facing a left-arm spinner in the final over of the day, Kohli perhaps wanted to be off strike for the last couple of deliveries. After all, Kohli has averaged just 20.41 against that mode of bowling in Test cricket since 2020. It also told something about Kohli’s state of mind.
Some of Kohli’s strengths have been his insatiable hunger, survival instincts and fearless attitude in taking on the best in the business. For survival instincts, just recall how he eked out an inside edge at the ‘nth’ moment to escape from getting out LBW to Lungi Ngidi at Centurion, in 2018. The initial hypothesis might be that Kohli was ‘lucky’ to survive. But on second thought, it was most likely his desperation to stay afloat that helped him chart out a narrow escape.
To exemplify his fearless attitude, just travel back in time to the 2011-12 Test series in Australia. At that stage of his career, there were lingering doubts about Kohli’s place in the Test side. Kohli gave a fitting riposte with 44 and 75 in rather tricky conditions at the WACA and followed it with a century in Adelaide. In the following press conference, Kohli had noted, “I don’t know why people were after me even after the first game. I had scored two fifties before that in the match versus West Indies [in Mumbai], and suddenly I was on the verge of being dropped after one match.
“Scoring eight hundreds in one-day internationals can’t be a fluke. It’s international cricket as well. I don’t know why people have been questioning my technique or temperament so much. I have been playing at No. 3 in one-dayers, and I have not gone in to bat in very good situations in all of the 70 [odd] matches I have played. All of this is a learning curve for me. I am playing on difficult wickets in Australia.”
More than a decade later, Kohli will once again tour Australia with the Indian team. And just like his first Test tour of Australia, there are question marks over his future in the longest format. But the silver lining is that Kohli seems to be in better batting rhythm against pace than spin bowling. To illustrate the point, at the start of the year, in some very tricky conditions for batting in Centurion, he had notched up 76 off just 82 deliveries. That innings included a few eye-catching shots off the back foot through the off-side; not exactly a scoring area for Kohli against pace.
Whether Kohli would succeed or not in Australia could come down to his current mental space. Kohli is also a human and his recent run of poor scores, albeit in different conditions, would have somewhere dented his confidence. If Kohli wades through the initial 15-20 deliveries of his first innings of the upcoming tour, and gets a boundary or two away, he could rediscover his touch.
The Indian think-tank will not only be sweating over Kohli’s form; as Rohit, his long-time batting partner, and the present captain of the Indian team, is also wallowing through a bad patch. The Indian opener averaged a mere 10.5 and 15.16 in his last two Test rubbers. With Rohit, it is pace bowlers who have troubled him in the last one year.
From Kagiso Rabada, James Anderson to Ben Stokes, Pat Cummins, and Tim Southee–a host of good and great pacers have mainly tried to zoom it on middle and off-stump, with a hope that the odd ball will straighten or nip away from Rohit to rattle the timber. Granted that barring picking up certain cues, there is no sure-shot method of negating seam movement. But just like Kohli, Rohit too probably needs to spend some time at the wicket before unleashing his range of shots.
At 37 and nearly 36, the two stalwarts of Indian cricket are nearing the end of their illustrious careers. But there is a window of hope that the duo might still have a few miles left in the tank.