It was sometime in August 2019, and the scars from the World Cup semi-final defeat were still raw. India were in the West Indies for a Test series, and Virat Kohli was eyeing a new start. “I had this feeling there would come a World Cup game where I would have an opportunity to steer a run chase and take India over the line,” he had said to me. “The New Zealand match was the perfect set up. But maybe, it was my ego talking.”
In that very conversation, he said that the newly launched World Test Championship would soon outdo all other ICC trophies and become world cricket’s most coveted prize. This was because it would be played over a period of two years, across countries and conditions, and was the ultimate Test for any cricketer. “If you want to leave behind a real legacy, you need to do well in Test cricket,” said Kohli with typical candour.
It must have meant the world to him and his team to make the final of the inaugural World Test Championship. And interestingly, it was yet again a match-up against New Zealand in England in June 2021. And again, Kohli was second-best.
India have made the final again, this time under Rohit Sharma. But all eyes as always will be on Kohli. He comes in to the final in red-hot form, and could well be the difference between an Indian victory and defeat. Can he redeem himself this time round and win India a first major ICC Trophy in 10 years?
Even his biggest detractor will agree that he is capable of doing so. This is an Indian side that has quality fast bowlers, quality spinners who can bat well, a very good all-rounder in Ravindra Jadeja and, finally, a decent batting line-up. What this team also has is an uncanny ability to come back from positions of difficulty. Down 0-1 against Australia with a depleted squad in 2021, they ended up taking the series, prompting Sunil Gavaskar to laud them as India’s best ever.
It has been said before, but the magic ingredient of success is often not star power but a kind of unrelenting intensity. For days on end. As a unit. Bowling fast and furious counts, no doubt, but it is batting with dogged determination and concentration in trying conditions that helps win Test matches overseas.
As Clive Lloyd, captain of a legendary West Indies side, has famously said, “Unless you are agreeable to play ugly, you will never be a great Test team. On difficult wickets, you need to bat ugly. The batsmen may not be great to look at, but they will be hugely effective. That’s what you want from your best players, and that’s what you need to be successful in Test cricket in challenging conditions.”
Rohit’s team, we know, is ready to look ugly. Ready for a fight even when pushed into a corner. And the man who could well lead this fight is Kohli. And while no one can say for certain if India will win the World Test Championship, what we can say with a fair degree of conviction is that with the effort put in will always be 100 percent. Proper planning, increased emphasis on fitness and a talented bunch of players make us believe that India will go into the final on an equal footing. It will surely be Rohit and Kohli’s best chance to script history, and do what MS Dhoni did a decade ago in 2013 by winning the ICC Champions Trophy. They have put in the hard yards. Now they need the title to show for it.
Back-to-back WTC finals are proof that we have the 99 percent. And now it is the quest for that one percent that should drive Rohit, Kohli and this team. The surge down the home stretch is what has been missing. Those final stride where Usain Boult would look back and celebrate. That final push that took Novak Djokovic to 22 Grand Slams. That final pass under pressure that made Messi win the FIFA World Cup and prove himself the greatest.
For Rohit and Kohli, the bulk of the work has been done. It is the story of the one percent that will drive them over the next few months. And luckily for both, they also have the 50-over World Cup to look forward to. But before that, this WTC final, and a massive opportunity. It is the format that is most respected and regarded by the cricketers themselves, something Rohit alluded to at The Oval on Sunday as part of the ICC’s build-up show. It is the perfect stage for them both to get the monkey off their backs.
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