Chance for Kohli to make home run vs Windies count
The second ODI against West Indies in Ahmedabad on Wednesday offers another welcome opportunity, provided the visitors don’t bat first and fold cheaply again.
A genuine edge between slip and gully, a risky upper cut just wide of third man, a last-gasp ducking of his head to a sharp bouncer and an unconvincing pull straight to Kemar Roach at fine leg. Virat Kohli lasted all of four balls in the first ODI against West Indies on Sunday, but in that brief space, there was an intimation of something very odd going on. This was a Kohli so unlike his usual reassuring presence at the crease that it could have been a different player.
This was Kohli still very much in the middle of a long struggle to find his scoring touch again.
Four balls are perhaps too few to read too much into, but before his lean run began in 2020, Kohli’s efficiency in such chases was almost a given. Needing just 177 for victory, he came in after a solid opening partnership of 84. The opportunity to break his century drought – he hasn’t scored a ton since November 2019 – wasn’t there given they needed only 93 runs more at that stage, but the 33-year-old squandered a chance to start this run of home fixtures on an unblemished note.
The second ODI against West Indies in Ahmedabad on Wednesday offers another welcome opportunity, provided the visitors don’t bat first and fold cheaply again. The West Indian attack doesn’t offer the most daunting of challenges, especially in these conditions. Another ODI and three T20Is against the West Indies are to follow after the game on Wednesday before Sri Lanka arrive for a T20I series and two Tests. By the time the first Test against Sri Lanka is played – which will be Kohli’s 100th Test – the former India skipper will want his century drought, which has stretched to 66 innings now, to be a thing of the past.
He did score two fifties in the three-match ODI series against South Africa, but wasn’t able to convert either of those to a three-figure score, getting out to spin each time. Since his last ton, he has played 19 innings in the 50-over format and scored as many as 10 half-centuries without adding to the remarkable tally of 43 ODI hundreds. His average in this period is 40.68, a steep decline from the high of 59.84 till the end of 2019.
How worried should the team management be? In terms of consistency, he has still been contributing a fifty-plus score once in every two innings. But as Kohli and the team management will know, the longer he takes to bring up three figures, the more uncomfortable the noise will get.
What’s been triggering these dismissals in ODIs after getting set is hard to put a finger on. In Test cricket, the problems against a probing line outside off-stump have been well-documented. Especially in England and South Africa, where India’s recent Tests were played, no batter could completely relax even once the early storm was weathered. There is no such stern examination in white-ball cricket of course.
Kohli and the other Indian batters seemed keen in the last game to finish the chase as quickly as possible, taking just 28 overs and losing four wickets to hunt down 177. If It’s part of a concerted effort by the Indians to add more urgency to their batting, that's understandable. India has been on a stated quest to make their batting more aggressive to catch up with the best teams in the shorter formats.
“We are going to bat the same way. It is just that when we bat first, we need to bat till the end to have a dependable score. Our tempo in the last game was perfect. The intensity was really good. There is nothing to change. We just need to express ourselves,” said Suryakumar Yadav on Tuesday.
Kohli will just hope that a different personal outcome is achieved on Wednesday.
KL Rahul returns
Vice-captain KL Rahul will return to the Indian playing XI after missing the first ODI due to a family commitment. Although the 29-year-old opened the batting in South Africa – where he was captain in Rohit Sharma’s absence – it remains to be seen where he bats on Wednesday.
Shikhar Dhawan and Shreyas Iyer returned to training on Wednesday. Both of them had missed the opener after contracting Covid. If Dhawan is immediately brought back in to open alongside Sharma, Rahul will bat in the middle-order. Otherwise, Rahul is likely to open while the middle-order remains unchanged.
