Sobering series loss leaves Kohli staring squarely at cricketing mortality

Source : ABC NEWS

Virat Kohli’s reaction after his final dismissal of the series said it all.

One of the main storylines of the recently completed series between India and Australia, widely considered one of the greatest in recent memory, was Kohli’s inability to leave balls outside his off stump.

Kohli was dismissed eight times in the series, all eight of them via the same method — the ball catching his edge before flying to a fielder stationed behind the stumps.

It was a plan everyone in the country and the world knew, including Kohli, yet it was one that he remains seemingly powerless to stop.

Moments after nicking Scott Boland to Steve Smith in the slips, Kohli broke out into a mini tantrum, repeatedly punching his leg in frustration, and it was telling. He was like a kid who knew he wasn’t allowed to eat sweets, yet was unable to restrain from reaching across the kitchen counter for a Tim Tam.

Kohli’s personal battle and his inability to win it was the series in a microcosm for India.

Just like Boland didn’t do anything out of the ordinary to send Kohli packing time and time again, Australia didn’t do anything out of the ordinary to beat India and reclaim the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

India had very apparent flaws coming into the series — a woefully out-of-form-batting line-up and a bowling unit that lacked consistency behind Jasprit Bumrah, and Australia exposed both with ruthless effect.

Kohli and India will feel like this series was a major opportunity missed. The fact they came close to somehow retaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy yet again despite being in such poor form as a collective unit shows Australia isn’t miles ahead as a team.

India prides itself on performances against the famed “SENA” nations — South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia. Therefore, going 1-6 with a draw sandwiched in against the latter two nations over the last six months should spark some serious soul-searching.

Top of the agenda has to be figuring out what to do with Rohit Sharma and Kohli, two stalwarts of Indian cricket.

The tourists had a dream start to the series in Perth in their skipper Rohit’s absence, winning the first Test by 295 runs. However, the task of fitting him back into the side proved troublesome.

Rohit initially did the right thing by slotting in at number six, rather than in his favoured spot at the top of the order, after Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul had posted a double-century opening stand in Perth.

India was lucky to get out of Brisbane with the series still level at 1-1 after some assistance from Mother Nature, but the team selection risk taken in trying to get Rohit back to his best for the fourth Test ultimately caused the tourists to come undone.

When the team sheet was read out for the Boxing Day Test, Rohit was back opening. The in-form KL Rahul, who had scored 84 in the previous Test, had been dropped down to number three and one of the players expected to take this Test side forward in the next decade, Shubman Gill, was dropped altogether.

The results were disastrous for India. Rohit managed a total of 12 runs at the MCG, bringing his 2024 average to 24.76 before reading the writing on the wall and dropping himself for the series finale in Sydney.

Being moved around to accommodate for Rohit took Rahul out of his groove as well, with the right-hander registering scores of 24, 0, 4 and 13 to end the series.

Rohit has been adamant he won’t retire despite sitting out the Sydney Test, but with India already out of the running for this year’s Test championship, it is time the brains trust goes in a different direction.

The 37-year-old is one of the most feared ball-strikers of his generation, particularly in the shorter formats of the game, so it was somewhat saddening to see him poke and prod while struggling to hit the ball off the square at the MCG in what might be his final Test match. Rohit trudged off the ground looking like a defeated man in India’s second innings of the fourth Test when he was dismissed trying to play an extravagant flick off the pads.

India is also edging closer to requiring an extremely uncomfortable conversation with its best player of the last decade, Kohli.

The former captain’s Test average is down below 47 after another lean series, a staggering drop-off considering it sat above 54 at one point five years ago. At one stage, Kohli had 25 Test centuries to 20 half-centuries. He now has 30 centuries and 31 half-centuries. Simply put, he is struggling to go big like he used to.

There is still hope for Kohli. His struggle is not as bad as Rohit’s, but he needs to figure out how to re-wire his brain into leaving balls outside his off stump. Other than this very obvious flaw, the rest of Kohli’s game still appears to be in somewhat decent shape.

Kohli is still in phenomenal physical shape, and given he is the consummate professional, it would be no surprise if he is able to figure out this off-stump flaw and spark a late-career renaissance.

However, there are now five years of solid evidence suggesting prime Kohli is not walking through that door again.

It is up to Kohli and India’s brains trust to figure out how to break him out of this slump. Does he move his guard to off stump so he can confidently leave balls in the corridor of uncertainty alone? It is something worth considering.

What hasn’t helped Kohli’s plight has been the shaky performances of the three batters ahead of him in recent times, outside of the prolific Yashasvi Jaiswal. He’s often tasked with facing a ball that is newer than he would like, just about the worst thing to encounter for a compulsive nicker as Kohli has become.

Kohli initially cut his teeth in India’s Test side batting at number six behind the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. It is a spot he hasn’t occupied since 2012, but could a move back down the order benefit both the team and player?

Moving Kohli down to number six would help him avoid the new ball more often than not, allowing those ahead of him to take the shine off the ball as Tendulkar and Dravid once did.

Kohli’s numbers are solid at number six, albeit in a small sample size. He has averaged 44.88 in nine innings with a century from that position.

The benefits of moving Kohli down are two-fold. It gives India a chance to let one of its next-generation players own the spot. Like Kohli made the number four position his own after Tendulkar’s retirement, India will be able to figure out who holds it down once Kohli is done. Shreyas Iyer or Sarfaraz Khan anyone?

This of course requires the next generation to be ready to grasp that opportunity, as Kohli was in 2013, when he scored 119 and 96 against a South African attack featuring Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander, Morne Morkel and Jacques Kallis in his first Test match batting at number four.

One of the next-generation players struggling to kick on in the red-ball format is Shubman Gill, who boasts a very mediocre batting average of 35.05 in 32 Tests now.

Gill’s career arc is very similar to that of Rohit. He’s become a fearsome one-day player, but for some reason has struggled to translate that success when representing India at the Test level.

For India to remain a force in Test cricket over the next five years, Jaiswal, Gill and Rishabh Pant need to do the lion’s share of the run scoring. Jaiswal has shown an appetite for the long innings, but Gill and Pant need to realise this team needs more than a flashy 30 from them, particularly if they’re batting at three and five, respectively.

Gill got starts in four of his five innings in Australia, but then got out when he was looking totally at ease. This is the Shubman Gill experience in a nutshell. He’ll look excellent at the crease right up until the moment he is dismissed.

All of this is also contingent on Kohli, a player of incredible pride, being open to taking the ego hit of sliding down the order. Usually, all-timers find their spot and stay in it until their last match. Only their retirement creates the vacancy. Tendulkar batted at number four until he walked out the door. Kumar Sangakkara remained at number three until he was done.

Australia had a similar issue with Ricky Ponting towards the tail end of his career as the once-prolific number three averaged in the 30s for three of the final four calendar years of his Test career.

Like Kohli, Ponting also saw his Test average plummet down from the high 50s to 51.85 by the time of his retirement. Australia tried to protect Ponting by sliding him down from number three to number four in his final calendar year, and found some success with the former skipper scoring two centuries before eventually retiring in 2012.

What makes the situation tricky for India is the fact that Kohli is still such a huge cultural piece in the dressing room. You can tell when he is in the side, the others around him walk taller. The kids these days call it “aura”, and Kohli has it in spades, even when he’s not making any runs.

It was jarring to watch Kohli and Rohit fielding side by side at the MCG and the completely different energy they brought to the table. Rohit mostly stood at first slip, arms crossed before crouching down into catching position as the bowler ran in. He gave off the vibe of a disappointed dad more often than not.

Kohli was omnipresent. He spent some time fielding in the slips and concocting strategies alongside Rohit. He was wildly marshalling his troops in other moments, jousting with the raucous Australian fans while fielding on the boundary at stretches.

He was the good cop and bad cop all at once. At one point, Kohli couldn’t hide his disappointment at Jaiswal dropping catch after catch, but was also the first to throw his arms around his teammate, who is 13 years his junior. Imagine what that felt like for Jaiswal, a kid who grew up watching and idolising Kohli.

When Kohli is up and about, he infuses the Indian side with an energy and an attitude that no other player brings to the table, and there remains very tangible value in that.

Late on day two of the final Test against Australia, India sniffed an opportunity to steal the match.

India’s captain Jasprit Bumrah was forced off the field — and eventually to a hospital — leaving Kohli in charge, as he had done so successfully many times before.

Being the head honcho again seemed to spark Kohli, and India by extension, to life.

Kohli swung the bowlers around masterfully in Bumrah’s absence as the tourists grabbed an unlikely first-innings lead courtesy of a late collapse from the Aussies.

He did this all while firing barbs at the Aussies in the crowd while standing at first slip, making sandpaper references to rile them up.

This was the quintessential Virat Kohli experience. Everything you love and hate about the man who has become synonymous with everything to do with Indian cricket over the last 15 years inside a manic hour of play.

Kohli’s antics set the table for him to play the defining innings of the series, and perhaps his career, when India came out to bat later on in the day. Maybe this would be the moment he breaks out of his slump? It wasn’t to be, as he nicked off to Boland again.

Throughout his career, emotion has always brought out the best in Kohli. He is a player who relishes a contest.

All series long, Kohli’s antagonistic moments, whether it was bumping Sam Konstas or talking trash to the Aussie fans, seemed to be more about sparking his own game to life than anything else.

When he is scoring bucketloads of runs, Kohli’s histrionics are inspiring and motivating to his team. When he is not, they become a distraction.

India has to figure out when the distraction becomes not worth it anymore.