Tale of two contrasting Galle Tests: Virat Kohli’s quest for balance could be over

At the end of the fourth day of the first Test in Galle, Virat Kohli sat in the press conference room with a long face. No, not on July 29, 2017; instead, this scene was from two years ago, in 2015.

For much of the first three days, India had comfortably dominated proceedings. But they failed to chase down 176 runs on day four. It was a seminal moment in Kohli’s young captaincy – playing five bowlers was the way forward indeed, but his team lacked the optimal balance. For the next two years, home or away, they have searched for the answer to this question. And they may have just found the answer in Galle, again.

But first, what is team balance in Test cricket after all? The answer to this question is obvious – enough batsmen to put up a tall score on board, and then enough bowling options to get 20 wickets, at times in the cushion of that same ‘tall score’. That’s how you win Test matches – it is not rocket science. The trick is in finding the equilibrium point – five batsmen or six, four bowlers or five – between bat and ball, and this aspect is where India have struggled for a long, long time.

Let us look back to the nineties, just recently enough. Throughout the 2013-14 overseas cycle, then-skipper MS Dhoni complained about the lack of a seam-bowling option. As his deputy, Kohli was at close quarters to understand exactly what the Indian team was missing, particularly in the losses in South Africa (at Durban), England (at Southampton) and Australia (at Brisbane). When he did assume part-time captaincy in Adelaide, and then full-time in Sydney, Kohli found one of his hands tied behind his back as well, much like Dhoni.

The experimentation may have come to an end

The early difference between Dhoni’s latter reign and Kohli’s early captaincy was the identification and acceptance of this problem. Even if Dhoni knew that his four bowlers might not be able to do the job, he didn’t hedge bets by shortening the batting line-up, not until the final year(s) of his Test career when he took up the number six spot. Kohli, on the other hand, has been in pursuit of finding that optimal element for his team from day one.

With the bat in hand, that is Rohit Sharma, period. He is the quintessential number six, who can do an attacking or a defensive job in the middle order. As concerns the ball, this is where the pitch gets tricky, and Kohli has spent considerable time trying out different names in this role.

In the beginning it was Harbhajan Singh, who featured against Bangladesh and that first Test in Galle in 2015. Again, when you go back to that embarrassing loss to Rangana Herath on a square turner, it is almost as if Kohli attained enlightenment then. The need of the hour was someone who could bat more than he could bowl, taking some weight off the four main bowlers, while adding a few important runs late in the order.

Stuart Binny was the obvious choice. Kohli had seen Dhoni use him in that particular role in 2014, forcibly one might add, and he replicated that in Sri Lanka and then against South Africa at home (2015). The experiment was short-lived, much like Binny’s Test career. Kohli, though, seems to have found a new solution after a long wait.

“At home it has been different but when you play away from home, one guy gives you a lot of balance and I think Hardik Pandya can be that guy going ahead. He can bowl at 135-plus, get in a few overs, can get quick runs like he did here, and he is a tremendous fielder,” said Kohli, verifying this experiment carried out in the Galle Test.

This is where the ‘fifth balancing element’ debate takes a different turn altogether.

Pandya may be the glue that the team lacks

On the face of it, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are among the top three Test bowlers in the world. When the long 2016-17 home season began, Ashwin was miles ahead of his spin twin, picking 27 and 28 wickets against New Zealand and England, respectively. It was against Australia that Jadeja struck back (25 wickets) and indeed overtook Ashwin in proficiency with the ball. Is he now India’s first-choice spinner when playing overseas, given that he looked more likely to take a wicket throughout this just-concluded first Test in Sri Lanka?

While it is a deeper debate for another day, the momentary answer can also be found in Ashwin’s success as a number six batsman. In the West Indies, he smacked 235 runs in four Tests (including two hundreds), and perhaps it is what prompted the team management to promote him on day two here when both Wriddhiman Saha and Hardik Pandya were available. It is not to say that Ashwin loses his effectiveness as a stand-alone spinner in overseas conditions. Instead, it is to highlight that he is more attractive as a spin-bowling all-round package available to the captain when playing overseas.

At this juncture, turn back the pages of the home season again, and look at the wickets wherein India achieved near-invincibility. From Indore (versus New Zealand), through Mohali, Mumbai and Chennai (versus England), to Hyderabad (versus Bangladesh), to Dharamsala (against Australia), this Indian attack achieved victory on placid tracks that didn’t lend heavily in favour of spinners. Particularly, the victories achieved against England in both Mumbai and Chennai were stunning.

At home, that fifth bowler was a spinner, usually in the guise of Amit Mishra or later Kuldeep Yadav. Overseas, Kohli has already anointed Pandya. The underlying point being that with five bowlers, the Indian skipper has concocted a formula to grind out victories on flat tracks. That same formula was repeated in Galle on arguably the flattest wicket ever seen at this cricket stadium.

Yes, it works to perfection. Pandya, maybe, is even the missing link. Now, it is time for sterner Tests ahead, pun unintended.