Kohli's obsession with winning makes India a team you would pay to watch

Ajit Vijaykumar 18:29 07/01/2019
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  • Virat Kohli has an obsessive personality. He is obsessed about being the fittest athlete he can be. He is obsessed about scoring runs against every team, in every condition, in every match. He is obsessed about winning every time he is on the field. And India’s maiden Test series win in Australia is, to a great extent, a result of that obsession.

    On paper, India have just four wins in their away Test cycle that started with the tour of South Africa in the beginning of 2018. India lost the series in South Africa 2-1, lost in England 4-1 and won in Australia 2-1. That’s four wins and seven defeats. Rain robbed India of an opportunity to win the Sydney Test and make their record a more palatable 5-7. But India’s historic Test series win in Australia – the first ever by an Asian team – is much more than the 2-1 scoreline suggests.

    After Australia levelled the series 1-1 in Perth, questions were raised about the tactical nous of the management. They did not go with a spinner in the second Test, even as Australia’s Nathan Lyon picked up eight wickets and proved to be the deciding factor.

    But unlike the tour of England where they refused to learn from their mistakes and ended up selecting an injured Ravi Ashwin in the series-deciding Southampton Test, Kohli got the team combination right in the Melbourne and Sydney Tests and everything fell into place after that.

    Admittedly, the toss went in India’s favour in Melbourne and Sydney but given Kohli’s rotten luck when it comes to tosses – losing all of them in England – he deserved some luck with the flip of the coin. But you still have to score runs and take wickets, which is what India did to cap a difficult away tour cycle on a winning note.

    India’s bowling, Cheteshwar Pujara’s exemplary batting and an average Australian batting line-up played their part in the final result. But look beyond the stats, scorelines and quotes, the biggest result from the win Down Under and their overall game over the last season is this – you would pay to watch this Indian team.

    The rise of Jasprit Bumrah as the premier all-format quick in the world, coupled with the menace of Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma, with timely support from the likes of Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav and an intermittently fit Ashwin have given Team India a bite that is to be feared in Test pastures.

    Other teams like South Africa, England and New Zealand too have a potent bowling attack and are led by a dynamic captain. But there is mettle about India’s Test cricket. Their captain is boisterous. And he makes the right kind of noise, placing the Border-Gavaskar win above the World Cup triumph. Their best batsman – Pujara – has shown that you can succeed if just put your head down and follow your own path. Their replacement wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant does acrobatic flips (he was a gymnast) while taking a record number of catches and outscoring Kohli. Their pacers Bumrah and Shami sustained their hostility –  whenever they played – across 12 Tests. And most importantly, they didn’t go overboard while celebrating wins.

    Kohli puts a premium on intent, which resulted in some players like KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane losing their radar while bating. Pujara also got caught in its wake but dug deep to go back to his default mode and start scoring again. But the message from Kohli remained the same – batsmen have to remain positive, fielders must throw themselves around, fast bowlers have to run in hard all day and bowl with specific plans. Sometimes you get instances like the Oval Test against England when India went for victory chasing 464 on the final day when a draw was a distinct possibility and lost by 118 runs to lose the series 4-1 instead of 3-1. That defeat showed how deeply Kohli has ingrained the desire for victory in the mind of the team.

    It’s not like this Indian team is beyond criticism. They still make massive selection blunders and the injury management of key players like Ashwin and Hardik Pandya leaves a lot to be desired. But whether they win or lose, you want to watch them play. And that is the biggest achievement of Kohli the captain.

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