This was a mismatch. We all knew it was. India against West Indies isn’t a battle anymore. At least in Test cricket it isn’t. So at the start of day two, it didn’t surprise anyone when the former West Indian fast bowler Ian Bishop likened the way Virat Kohli built his innings on day one to the manner in which a batsman would approach an extended net session.
Kohli’s mind was set on spending time in the middle. In his last 21 Test innings, Virat Kohli has faced 100+ deliveries on ten occasions, and 200+ deliveries on five occasions. The thinking is simple: if you spend time in the middle, the runs will come. He doesn’t try to force the pace anymore.
So even though Prithvi Shaw and Rishabh Pant played attacking innings on a pitch that was for most part non-threatening, the Indian skipper simply let cruise control take over. He set a speed and stuck to it. He took his singles, he took his twos and by the time he reached his 24th Test ton, he had hit only seven fours.
Now, seven fours is odd because Kohli is usually the kind of batsmen who keeps raising the tempo as the innings goes on. But even though West Indies were on the mat, his strike-rate hovered around the 53-55 mark for most part. He was content to let the other batsmen take charge. It was almost as if he wanted to say, ‘show me what you are all about.’
During the innings, he also became the first Indian player to score 1,000+ Test runs in three consecutive calendar years (2016, 2017, 2018). They are years that he has dominated by the sheer force of his will. He has changed his batting, worked on his technique, become fitter and he almost never takes it easy… not even against the West Indies.
Only Hayden (5 years) and Steven Smith (4 years) have done it more years in a row.
The commentators often touched upon the fact that the West Indian player should look at Kohli and learn from him. But that statement is just as true for Indian batsmen too.
This Test was a golden opportunity for KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane to get some runs under their belt. Rahul’s career has had a rollercoaster feel to it of late and Rahane hasn’t scored a century at home for a while now. But while Rahul fell early, Rahane’s innings had a strange feel to it. It lacked the consistency and the solidity that Kohli batting at the other end seemed to radiate.
Given the way the rest of the Indian team has been coming along, if the batsmen can get their act together and join Virat Kohli, this team could dominate home and away. The bowling has been performing brilliantly — India has quality spin and pace options that have been delivering for a while now.
Kohli has been doing his bit as a batsman but the rest of the line-up has been far too inconsistent or low on confidence. A series against the current West Indies is an opportunity to spend time in the middle and score the big runs too.
Kohli is currently a rock that the rest of this side has to build around. The team needs to feed off his confidence and take on the opposition. Indeed, if nothing else, they need to make the Kohli aura work for them as well.
And for that they need to find themselves in the right frame of mind. A series like this could be key to that.
In Kohli’s insatiable hunger for runs, there is a lesson or two for his teammates.
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