2 weeks Ago
The mistake India made that caused Virat Kohli's decline and why England fans shouldn't celebrate it, writes Wisden Editor LAWRENCE BOOTH Test cricket with Virat Kohli in his pomp on the field is a more colourful pageant Join Mail+ for more exclusive scoops, in-depth reporting and analysis from inside the England cricket camp By Lawrence Booth for the Daily Mail Published: 07:00 EST, 5 November 2024 | Updated: 07:00 EST, 5 November 2024 e-mail View comments The sight of Virat Kohli poking and prodding his way to 93 runs in six innings during India ’s earth-shattering defeat by New Zealand caused shockwaves among his adoring public. Might the tremors have been felt at Lord’s too? 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 gate receipts on day five if India are chasing 300 and Kohli isn’t there to help them over the line. For the ECB, his absence does not bear thinking about.
Kohli will not exactly be enjoying the thought either. But then he’s had a while to get used to it. Two years ago at Edgbaston, as England set about their record chase of 378 during the delayed fifth Test, he suffered the indignity of being sledged by Alex Lees, who by the end of the summer had lost his Test place.
According to Lees, Kohli had been giving him an earful from slip - ‘pretty poor cricket chat’. Determined not to be bullied, Lees - who had been studying the form guide - retaliated with: ‘I’ve had two kids since you last scored a century.’ Virat Kohli failed to cover himself in glory during India's seismic Test defeat to New Zealand Poking and prodding his way to a lacklustre 93 runs in six innings, Kohli could yet be a major doubt to face England next year Alex Lees taunted Kohli with his run tally at Edgbaston in 2022 and two years later there has been scant improvement When Kohli ended his three-and-a-half-year wait for a Test hundred against Australia at Ahmedabad in March 2023, then hit another four months later against West Indies at Port of Spain, the Lees jibe could be laid aside.
And yet they remain Kohli’s only two Test centuries since the start of 2020. In the meantime, a player who was once the leading member of the Fab Four has been struggling to pay his subs: over the last five years, Kane Williamson has averaged 64, Joe Root 55, Steve Smith 45 ..
.and Kohli 31. Read More What the English really think of David Warner, writes Wisden Editor LAWRENCE BOOTH To put it another way: he has averaged less in that time than Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley, who are often accused of enjoying protected status in the weird and wonderful world of Bazball.
And if there’s one cricketing country that knows about protected status, it’s India, with its cultural deference to seniority and hierarchy. One or two critics voiced concerns. Sanjay Manjrekar dared to suggest that Kohli had ‘misread the length’ of the full toss from Mitchell Santner which bowled him during the second Test at Pune.
Dinesh Karthik wondered whether his defence had been compromised by too much white-ball cricket. But the reaction of Sunil Gavaskar, Indian cricket’s most strident cheerleader, spoke for 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 a bit more luck.
Of course, a five-match tour of Australia to defend the Border-Gavaskar Trophy that India have held for the last eight years may be just the challenge to get Kohli’s juices flowing. What a boost it would be for India if Kohli could recapture his 2014-15 form on Australian soil His four centuries Down Under in 2014-15 are among the great feats of modern batsmanship. And he averages 54 on Australian soil, where the true pitches and lack of lateral movement play to 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 so against Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon. In Kohli’s favour, paradoxically, will be the location - because if any factor is at the heart of his decline, it is the state of India’s Test pitches. Prepared to ensure Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and others can spin out opponents at will, they helped buttress a remarkable home record: 18 successive series wins across 12 years, ended only by New Zealand’s 3-0 triumph last week.
But the pitches also helped opposition spinners, with unintended consequences: Test by Test, Kohli’s confidence and technique have been eroded. Left-arm spin, in particular, caused him problems, with two of the breed - New Zealand’s Santner and Ajaz Patel - most recently keeping him quiet. New Zealand made history with their swept 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, the Indian journalist Sidharth Monga points out how Kohli has become cricket’s answer to Jekyll and Hyde.
Since 2017, on home pitches where spinners have averaged more than 24, Kohli’s batting average has been 90; when spinners averaged less than 24, his average has dropped to 20. As per the discrepancy between his records in Australia and England, Kohli is at his best when he can hit through the line. Read More Why India's 'Gamball' can be the real saviour of Test cricket, writes LAWRENCE BOOTH It seems obvious, then, that India’s strategy has come at a cost, robbing him of his aura, and obliging him to play almost all his Test cricket in conditions not of his choosing.
His captain, Rohit Sharma - who managed just 91 runs in six innings against New Zealand, and who turned 37 in April - has paid a similar price. It’s also true that no cricketer since Sachin Tendulkar has played under such scrutiny, and that no Indian cricketer full stop has enjoyed a more high-profile marriage than Kohli, to the film star Anushka Sharma. At the feverish intersect of cricket and Bollywood, India’s two great focal points, he has been trying to iron out his kinks.
Every man has his breaking point. Kohli’s may not yet have arrived, despite everything. He turns 36 on Tuesday, and Tendulkar was still playing Test cricket at 40.
And the game needs him. It has often been said that while Kohli is publicly declaiming Test cricket’s primacy, the format need not worry too much about the growth of the T20 franchises. The 36-year-old has no escape from the public eye due to his status and that of his wife - film star Anushka Sharma The game needs Kohli and should he falter against Australia, India's contest against England will be a quieter affair And without him? As events in Australia over the coming weeks will no doubt confirm, Test cricket is a more colourful pageant when Kohli is around , strutting his stuff, barking his advice, driving a fast bowler on the up through the covers - furious one minute, sublime the next.
If the Australians get the better of him, India’s Test series in England next summer could be a quieter affair, both on the pitch and in the stands. Livingstone's playing without limits Have England finally unlocked the potential of Liam Livingstone? Previous regimes would have tired of his disappearing acts at crucial moments - probably after last year’s 50-over World Cup in India, and definitely after this year’s T20 edition in the Caribbean. Liam Livingstone was handed the reins in the Caribbean and more than stepped up to the task This regime flirted with the notion, dropping him from the one-day side, before turning full circle and handing him the captaincy.
On Sunday in Antigua, he played one of England’s great ODI innings : 124 not out off 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 obliged by a ridiculous schedule to pick below-strength white-ball teams, Livingstone is papering spectacularly over the cracks. Hats off to England for recognising that with responsibility comes power-hitting.
Anderson's telling omission Jimmy Anderson suggested ‘no one really takes any notice of the World Test Championship’ during an interview about his new autobiography, Finding the Edge. He omitted two words: ‘in England’. Because, elsewhere, the race for the WTC final at Lord’s next summer is growing impossibly tight, with the top five teams separated by 8.
33 percentage points. Jimmy Anderson may not put much primacy on the WTC final but a slew of other teams do There’s plenty to dislike about the WTC: its structure is a horrible mess. But it has given context to this winter’s matches - as England will do well to remember when they start their series later this month in New Zealand, who now have Lord’s in their sights after the miracle in India.
Black Caps make history Did any stat better sum up Test cricket’s historical imbalance than the fact that New Zealand had never previously won three games in a series? This was partly because they took a while to prosper at Test level, and partly because they get fobbed off with two-match series. Here’s hoping the win in India changes perceptions. India Cricket Virat Kohli Share or comment on this article: The mistake India made that caused Virat Kohli's decline and why England fans shouldn't celebrate it, writes Wisden Editor LAWRENCE BOOTH e-mail Add comment.
