'People will forgive you for being wrong, but they will never forgive you for being right - especially if events prove you right while proving them wrong.' Thomas Sowell
Watching Virat Kohli play two exquisite square drives against Australia in March 2016, I tweeted: "There goes my boyhood hero G. R. Viswanath from my all time India XI." Those boundaries formed part of a match-winning innings of 82 in a T20 World Cup quarter-final, and they confirmed for me Kohli's cricketing greatness.
I had first been struck by how good he was when watching, at the ground, a hundred he scored in a Test in Bangalore in 2012. Against a fine New Zealand attack, Sachin Tendulkar looked utterly ordinary, whereas the man who, the previous year, had carried Tendulkar on his shoulders in tribute was totally in command. Two years later, I saw on the telly every run of his dazzling 141 in Adelaide, when, in his first Test as captain, Kohli almost carried India to a remarkable win.
The admiration had steadily accumulated. So, as he struck the miserly James Faulkner and Nathan Coulter-Nile for those two defining boundaries in that T20 match in 2016, the sentimental attachments of childhood were decisively vanquished by sporting prowess. Virender Sehwag and Sunil Gavaskar would open the batting in my fantasy XI; Rahul Dravid and Tendulkar would come next; and Kohli alone could be No. 5.
That was two years ago. Now, after the staggering series of innings he has played since - not least that magnificent 153 in India's most recent Test - I would go even further. In all formats and in all situations, Kohli might already be India's greatest ever batsman.
Their orthodoxy and classicism, which served Dravid and Gavaskar so well in the Test arena, constrained them in limited-overs cricket. Sehwag had a spectacular Test record, but his one-day career was, by his own exalted standards, rather ordinary. Tendulkar was superb, often supreme, in the first innings of a Test, but he was not entirely to be relied upon in the fourth innings, or even when batting second in the 50-overs game. Besides, being captain made Tendulkar nervous and insecure in his strokeplay. On the other hand, captaincy only reinforces Kohli's innate confidence, and of course, he is absolutely brilliant while chasing.
"No one in the entire history of the game in India has quite had Kohli's combination of cricketing greatness, personal charisma, and this extraordinary drive and ambition to win for himself and his team"
I have met Kohli only once, and am unlikely to ever meet him again. But from our single conversation, and from what I have seen of him otherwise, I would say that of all of India's great sportsmen past and present, he is the most charismatic. He is a man of a manifest intelligence (not merely cricketing) and of absolute self-assurance. Gavaskar and Dravid were as articulate as Kohli in speech, but without his charisma. Kapil and Dhoni had equally strong personalities but lacked Kohli's command of words.
I was witness to the reach and range of Kohli's dominating self in my four months in the BCCI's Committee of Administrators. The board's officials worshipped him even more than the Indian cabinet worships Narendra Modi. They deferred to him absolutely, even in matters like the Future Tours Programme or the management of the National Cricket Academy, which were not within the Indian captain's ken.
In any field in India - whether it be politics or business or academia or sport - when strength of character is combined with solidity of achievement, it leads to an individual's dominance over the institution. And the fact is that, on and off the field, Kohli is truly impressive. No one in the entire history of the game in our country has quite had his combination of cricketing greatness, personal charisma, and this extraordinary drive and ambition to win for himself and his team. The only person who came close, even remotely close, is (or was) Anil Kumble.
Kumble was, by some distance, the greatest bowler produced by India. He was a superb thinker on the game. Moreover, he was well educated, well read, and had an interest in society and politics. And he was not lacking in an awareness of his own importance, although he carried his self-belief in a Kannadiga rather than Punjabi fashion.
It may be that Kumble alone is in the Kohli league as a cricketer and character. That perhaps is why they clashed and perhaps why Kumble had to go.
But why was he replaced by someone so strikingly inferior, in character and cricketing achievement, to the team's captain? A person with no coaching experience besides? Only because, like the BCCI, the chairman of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators surrendered his liberties and his independence when confronted by the force of Kohli's personality. As did the so-called Cricket Selection Committee. Ravi Shastri was chosen over Tom Moody (and other contenders) because Vinod Rai, Tendulkar, Sourav Gangulyand VVS Laxman were intimidated by the Indian captain into subordinating the institution to the individual. The unwisdom of that decision was masked when India played at home, against weak opposition, but it can no longer be concealed.
Had the BCCI thought more about cricket than commerce, we would not have had to go into this series against South Africa without a single practice match. Had the selectors been wiser or braver, India might not have been 2-0 down now.
Some Kohli bhakts will complain at the timing of this article, written after the Indian captain played such a stupendous innings himself. But this precisely is the time to remind ourselves of how we must not allow individual greatness to shade into institutional hubris. Kohli did all he could to keep India in the game, but the power of an individual in a team game can go only so far. Had Ajinkya Rahane played both Tests, had Bhuvneshwar Kumar played this Test, had India gone two weeks earlier to South Africa instead of playing gully cricket at home with the Sri Lankans, the result might have been quite different.
The BCCI and their cheerleaders brag about India being the centre of world cricket. This may be true in monetary terms, but decidedly not in sporting terms. From my own stint in the BCCI, I reached this melancholy conclusion: that were the game better administered in India, the Indian team would never lose a series. There are ten times as many cricket-crazy Indians as there are football-mad Brazilians. The BCCI has huge cash reserves. With this demographic and financial base, India should always and perennially have been the top team in all formats of the game. If India still lost matches and series, if India still hadn't, in 70 years of trying, won a Test series in Australia (a country with about as many people as Greater Mumbai), then surely the fault lay with how the game was mismanaged in the country.
To the corruption and cronyism that has so long bedevilled Indian cricket has recently been added a third ailment: the superstar syndrome. Kohli is a great player, a great leader, but in the absence of institutional checks and balances, his team will never achieve the greatness he and his fans desire.
When, in the 1970s, India won their first Test series in the West Indies and in England, Vijay Merchant was chairman of selectors. When much later, India began winning series regularly at home, the likes of Gundappa Viswanath and Dilip Vengsarkar were chairmen of selectors. Their cricketing achievements were as substantial as that of the existing players. They had the sense to consult the captain on team selection, but also had the stature to assert their own preferences over his when required. On the other hand, the present set of selectors have all played a handful of Tests apiece. The coach, Shastri, played more, but he was never a true great, and his deference to the captain is in any case obvious.
In Indian cricket today, the selectors, coaching staff and administrators are all pygmies before Kohli. That must change. The selectors must be cricketers of real achievement (as they once were). If not great cricketers themselves, they must at least have the desire and authority to stand up to the captain. Likewise, the coach must have the wisdom and courage to, when necessary, assert his authority over Kohli's (as when Kumble picked Kuldeep Yadav, a move that decided a Test and series in India's favour). And the administrators must schedule the calendar to maximise India's chances of doing well overseas, rather than with an eye to their egos and purses. (The decision not to have an extended tour of South Africa was partly influenced by the BCCI's animosity towards Cricket South Africa.)
Only when India consistently win Tests and series in South Africa, and only when they do likewise in Australia, can they properly consider themselves world champions in cricket. They have the team, and the leader, to do it. However, the captain's authority and arrogance, so vital and important to his personal success, must be moderated and managed if it is to translate into institutional greatness.
Kohli is still only 29. He will surely lead India in South Africa again and he has more than one tour of Australia ahead of him. Two years ago he secured a firm place in my all-time India XI. My wish, hope and desire is for Kohli to end his career with him also being the captain of my XI.
Kumble's resignation was no great surprise, as he's a strong-minded individual and the deteriorating relationship between him and the captain, Virat Kohli, had reached the stage of being a distraction. Kumble's character is relevant to any discussion about India's future coaching appointments. The captain is the only person who can run an international cricket team properly, because so much of the job involves on-field decision making. Also, a good part of the leadership role - performed off the field - has to be handled by the captain, as it helps him earn the players' respect, which is crucial to his success.
Consequently a captain has to be a strong-minded individual and decisive in his thought process. To put someone of a similar mindset in a position where he's advising the captain is inviting confrontation.
The captain's best advisors are his vice-captain, a clear-thinking wicketkeeper, and one or two senior players. They are out on the field and can best judge the mood of the game and what advice should be offered to the captain and when.
The best off-field assistance for a captain will come from a good managerial type. Someone who can attend to duties that are not necessarily related to winning or losing cricket matches, but done efficiently, can contribute to the success of the team.
The last thing a captain needs is to come off the field and have someone second-guess his decisions. He also doesn't need a strong-minded individual (outside his advisory group) getting too involved in the pre-match tactical planning. Too often I see captaincy that appears to be the result of the previous evening's planning, and despite ample evidence that it's hindering the team's chances of victory, it remains the plan throughout the day.
This is generally a sure sign that the captain is following someone else's plan and that he, the captain, is the wrong man for the job.
India is fortunate to have two capable leaders in Kohli and the man who stood in for him during the Test series with Australia, Ajinkya Rahane.
It's Kohli's job as captain to concentrate on things that help win or lose cricket matches, and his off-field assistants' task is to ensure he is not distracted in trying to achieve victory.
India's opponents in the final, Pakistan, were unusually free of any controversies during the tournament. They were capably led by Sarfraz Ahmed, who appeared to become more and more his own man as the tournament progressed.
It has been a pleasure working with Diana, Vikram and you in the Supreme Court Committee of Administrators. It has been an educative experience, spending long hours with three top-flight professionals from whom I have learned a lot in these past few months. However, it has been clear for some time now that my thoughts and views are adjacent to, and sometimes at odds with, the direction the Committee is taking as a whole. That is why I eventually decided to request the Supreme Court to relieve me of the responsibility, and submitted my letter of resignation to the Court on the morning of the 1st of June.
For the record, and in the interests of transparency, I am here listing the major points of divergence as I see it:
1. The question of conflict of interest, which had lain unaddressed ever since the Committee began its work, and which I have been repeatedly flagging since I joined. For instance, the BCCI has accorded preferential treatment to some national coaches (read Dravid) , by giving them ten month contracts for national duty, thus allowing them to work as IPL coaches/mentors for the remaining two months. This was done in an adhoc and arbitrary manner; the more famous the former player-turned-coach, the more likely was the BCCI to allow him to draft his own contract that left loopholes that he exploited to dodge the conflict of interest issue.
I have repeatedly pointed out that it is contrary to the spirit of the Lodha Committee for coaches or the support staff of the Indian senior or junior team, or for staff at the National Cricket Academy, to have contracts in the Indian Premier League. One cannot have dual loyalties of this kind and do proper justice to both. National duty must take precedence over club affiliation.
I had first raised this issue to my COA colleagues in an email of 1st February, and have raised it several times since. I had urged that coaches and support staff for national teams be paid an enhanced compensation, but that this conflict of interest be stopped. When, on the 11th of March, I was told that that there was a camp scheduled for young players at the National Cricket Academy but at least one national coach was likely to be away on IPL work and might not attend the camp, I wrote to you:
No person under contract with an India team, or with the NCA, should be allowed to moonlight for an IPL team too.
BCCI in its carelessness (or otherwise) might have drafted coaching/support staff contracts to allow this dual loyalty business, but while it might be narrowly legal as per existing contracts, it is unethical, and antithetical to team spirit, leading to much jealousy and heart-burn among the coaching staff as a whole. This practice is plainly wrong, as well as antithetical to the interests of Indian cricket.
I would like an explicit and early assurance from the BCCI management that such manifestly inequitous loopholes in coaching/support staff contracts will be plugged.
Yet no assurance was given, and no action was taken. The BCCI management and office-bearers have, in the absence of explicit directions from the COA, allowed the status quo to continue.
2. I have also repeatedly pointed to the anomaly whereby BCCI-contracted commentators simultaneously act as player agents. In a mail of 19th March to the COA I wrote:
Sunil Gavaskar is head of a company which represents Indian cricketers while commenting on those crickters as part of the BCCI TV commentary panel. This is a clear conflict of interest. Either he must step down/withdraw himself from PMG completely or stop being a commentator for BCCI.
I think prompt and swift action on this matter is both just and necessary. COA’s credibility and effectiveness hinges on our being able to take bold and correct decisions on such matters. The ‘superstar’ culture that afflicts the BCCI means that the more famous the player (former or present) the more leeway he is allowed in violating norms and procedures. (Dhoni was captain of the Indian team while holding a stake in a firm that represented some current India players.) This must stop – and only we can stop it.
Yet, despite my warnings, no action has been initiated in the several months that the Committee has been in operation.
As the mail quoted above noted, one reasons the conflict of interest issue has lingered unaddressed is that several of the game’s superstars, past and present, have been guilty of it. The BCCI management is too much in awe of these superstars to question their violation of norms and procedures. For their part, BCCI office-bearers like to enjoy discretionary powers, so that the coaches or commentrators they favour are indebted to them and do not ever question their own mistakes or malpractices. But surely a Supreme Court appointed body should not be intimidated by the past or present achievements of a cricketer, and instead seek to strive to be fair and just.
Conflict of interest is rampant in the State Associations as well. One famous former cricketer is contracted by media houses to comment on active players while serving as President of his State Association (read Ganguly). Others have served as office-bearers in one Association and simultaneously as coaches or managers in another. The awarding of business contracts to friends and relatives by office-bearers is reported to be fairly widespread.
Had we been more proactive in stopping conflict of interest within the BCCI (as per Lodha Committee recommendations, endorsed by the Court), this would surely have had a ripple effect downwards, putting pressure on State Assocations to clean up their act as well.
3. Unfortunately, this superstar syndrome has also distorted the system of Indian team contracts. As you will recall, I had pointed out that awarding MS Dhoni an ‘A’ contract when he had explicitly ruled himself out from all Test matches was indefensible on cricketing grounds, and sends absolutely the wrong message.
4. The way in which the contract of Anil Kumble, the current Head Coach of the senior team, has been handled. The Indian team’s record this past season has been excellent; and even if the players garner the bulk of the credit, surely the Head Coach and his support staff also get some. In a system based on justice and merit, the Head Coach’s term would have been extended. Instead, Kumble was left hanging, and then told the post would be re-advertised afresh.
Clearly, the issue has been handled in an extremely insensitive and unprofessional manner by the BCCI CEO and the BCCI office-bearers, with the COA, by its silence and inaction, unfortunately being complicit in this regard. (Recall that the Court Order of 30 January had expressly mandated us to supervise the management of BCCI.) In case due process had to be followed since Kumble’s original appointment was only for one year, why was this not done during April and May, when the IPL was on? If indeed the captain and the Head Coach were not getting along, why was this not attended to as soon as the Australia series was over in late March? Why was it left until the last minute, when a major international tournament was imminent, and when the uncertainty would undermine the morale and ability to focus of the coach, the captain and the team? And surely giving senior players the impression that they may have a veto power over the coach is another example of superstar culture gone berserk? Such a veto power is not permitted to any other top level professional team in any other sport in any other country. Already, in a dismaying departure from international norms, current Indian players enjoy a veto power on who can be the members of the commentary team (read departure of Harsha Bhogle). If it is to be coaches next, then perhaps the selectors and even office-bearers will follow?
5. Ever since the Supreme Court announced the formation of the COA, we have been inundated, individually and collectively, by hundreds of mails asking us to address various ills that afflict Indian cricket and its administration. While many of these issues were trivial or clearly beyond our purview, there was one concern that we should have done far more to address. This concerns the callous treatment to domestic cricket and cricketers, namely, those who represent their state in the Ranji Trophy, the Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and other inter-state tournaments. The IPL may be Indian cricket’s showpiece; but surely the enormous revenues it generates should be used to make our domestic players more financially secure? There are many more Indian cricketers who make their living via the Ranji Trophy than via IPL; besides, for us to have a consistently strong Test team (especially overseas) we need a robust inter-state competition and therefore must seek to compensate domestic players better.
And yet, shockingly, Ranji match fees have remained at a very low level (a mere Rs 30,000 odd for each day of play); moreover, cheques for match fees sent by the BCCI are sometimes not passed on by the state associations to the players. We need to learn from best practices in other countries, where domestic players are awarded annual contracts like those in the national team, while their match fees are reasonably competitive too.
Several months ago, the experienced cricket administrator Amrit Mathur prepared an excellent note on the need for better and fairer treatment of domestic players. Both Diana and I have repeatedly urged action, but this has not happened.
6. I believe it was a mistake for the COA to have stayed silent and inactive when the Supreme Court judgment was being so flagrantly violated by people clearly disqualified to serve as office bearers of state and even BCCI run cricket bodies. The disqualified men were openly attending BCCI meetings, claiming to represent their state association, and indeed played a leading role in the concerted (if fortunately in the end aborted) attempt to get the Indian team to boycott the Champions Trophy. All these illegalities were widely reported in the press; yet the COA did not bring them to the notice of the Court, and did not issue clear directions asking the offenders to desist either.
7. I believe that the lack of attention to these (and other such issues) is in part due to the absence of a senior and respected male cricketer on our Committee. Allow me to quote from a mail I wrote on 1 February 2017, before our first full meeting:
Dear fellow members,
I much look forward to meeting you all later today. I know Vikram already and greatly admire both Vinod and Diana for their remarkable work in their chosen fields, and am truly honoured to be working with them as well.
I presume apart from discussing IPL, etc, with the BCCI representative we will get some time to discuss the way forward separately. I have several ideas which I wish to share with you about our collective responsibility, and wanted in this mail to flag what is most important of these. This is that we must incorporate into our committee of administrators, either as a full member or as a special invitee, a senior male cricketer with the distinction and integrity that Diana has. That will greatly enhance both our credibility and our ability to make informed decisions.
The absence of a respected male cricketer in the COA has attracted a great deal of criticism already, much of it from important stakeholders in Indian cricket. It must be addressed and remedied. The amicus curae had suggested two outstanding names, Venkat and Bedi, both of whom were rejected because they were over seventy. However, there are some cricketers of the right age and experience who fit the bill. Based on my knowledge of the subject, I would say Javagal Srinath would be an excellent choice. He is a world-class cricketer, was a successful and scandal-free Secretary of the Karnataka State Cricket Association and is an ICC match referee, and comes from an educated technical background to boot. I strongly urge the Chairman and the other members to consider approaching him in this regard. He would complement Diana perfectly, and the combination of these two respected and top class former cricketers would enhance our credibility and effectiveness enormously.
While Srinath is in my view the best choice, there are other alternative names too. I hope we can set aside some time at our meeting to discuss and resolve the issue.
With regards Ram
p.s. Needless to say, I have not discussed this with Srinath or with anyone else.
I raised this issue in a formal meeting of the COA as well, but unfortunately my proposal to invite a senior male cricketer to join the committee was not acted upon. We should have approached the Court to take necessary action, or else incorporated a senior, respected, male cricketer as a special invitee. With such a person on board the COA would have gained in experience, knowledge, understanding, and, not least, credibility. Indeed, had we such a person on board, the BCCI management and the office-bearers would have been compelled to be far more proactive in implementing the Lodha Committee recommendations than they have been thus far. As the only cricketer on the COA, Diana’s contributions have been invaluable; on many issues of administration and the rights of players she has brought a perspective based on a first-hand experience that the rest of us lacked. A male counterpart would have complemented and further enriched her contributions; but perhaps it is not too late to make amends.
8. While all our meetings were held in a cordial atmosphere, between meetings perhaps there was not adequate consultation, and there were several crucial decisions made where all the COA members were not brought into the loop. For instance, a capable, non-political Senior Counsel representing the COA and the BCCI in the Supreme Court was abruptly replaced by another Senior Counsel who is a party politician. Surely other COA members should have been consulted by email or by phone before this important change was made. I have taken too much of your time already, but permit me to make one last suggestion. This is that the place vacated by me on the Committee of Administrators be filled by a senior, respected, male cricketer with administrative experience.
Let me in conclusion thank you for your courtesy and civility these past few months, and wish you and the Committee all the best in your future endevours.
You might wonder what is the
relationship between James Andersen the cricketer and Dr. Alan Sked the
original founder of the UK Independence Party (UKIP)?
Prima facie, not a lot; one is a cricketer with not much connection with
academia and the other is a tenured historian at the London School of
Economics. But look closer and you can find both of them living in the past.
I attended Dr. Sked’s history
lectures many moons ago. He was a fine orator and I fondly remember him after
so many years, His pet theme was the greatness of the British Empire and the
downward spiral of the UK
since World War II especially with the increasing integration of erstwhile
enemies into the European Union. At one of our social do’s we had the following
conversation:
‘Alan, the UK needs a
clock that rotates backwards’
‘Why?’ he asked
‘Because you seem to be forever
living in the past’
‘Girish, do you know who you are
talking to? I will be marking your papers in the summer’
‘Alan I am not from colonial India, I am from a more confident India’….
I had been out of touch with Dr.
Sked until his proposal to start a UKIP of the left – however this proposal did
not see the light of day at least not in the form Dr. Sked envisaged. Today's early
morning reverie however linked Dr. Sked with James Andersen a great English
bowler. Andersen, whose career appears fast fading, criticised the Indian
captain Virat Kohli on the day he scored 235 runs. Kohli’s over 600 runs in four test
matches has Andersen unimpressed. He suggested that Kohli is not so much an
improved batsman, as a batsman playing in conditions that do not exploit his
"technical deficiencies".
"I'm not sure he's changed," Anderson said. "I just think any
technical deficiencies he's got aren't in play out here. The wickets just take
that out of the equation.
"We had success against him in England, but the pace of the
pitches over here just take any flaws he has out of the equation. There's not
that pace in the wicket to get the nicks, like we did against him in England with a
bit more movement. Pitches like this suit him down to the ground.”
"When that's not there, he's very much suited to
playing in these conditions. He's a very good player of spin and if you're not
bang on the money and don't take your chances, he'll punish you. We tried to
stay patient against him, but he just waits and waits and waits. He just played
really well."
Andersen, like Dr. Sked, loves to invoke the past when he
does not wish to deal with the current reality. Virat Kohli may indeed fail on his
next trip to England in 2018
on England’s
doctored pitches. But Andersen could be a little less churlish, live in the present and share some of the Yuletide spirit.
In cricket, as in any sport, there are two kinds of mistakes.
The bad mistake arises out of confused thinking, lack of focus and a poor understanding of tactics. The good mistake, on the other hand, implies a well-thought out plan gone wrong or an attempt to force the issue backfiring.
Increasingly as his captaincy progressed, India's most experienced and successful Test captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni kept making bad mistakes. Giving his bowlers one-over spells, for instance. Or wasting a fielder at leg gully.
Good fortune and hunches can take you only so far - every captain in the game's history has taken chances with an inexplicable bowling change or an illogical batting line-up and surprised everybody by winning. But that cannot be the basis for captaincy.
Positive attitude
Virat Kohli, at 26, younger than Dhoni by seven years, is not yet tactically sound but has two important things going for him: a positive attitude and enormous self-belief.
The essential difference between the past and future of Indian cricket is that while Dhoni was clearly on his way down, Kohli can only improve.
He will face many of the problems Dhoni did - a poor bowling attack, especially abroad, the pressures of being on the field for beyond 50 overs or a single day, the hope that victories in the shorter format will make up for their absence in Tests.
India had caved in without a fight in 13 of 17 Tests abroad before the last Australian tour. They lost the 14th in Adelaide, where Kohli led for the first time, but the texture of the defeat was different. The Anna Karenina Principle applied. "All happy families are alike," wrote Tolstoy in his novel, "each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Similarly, all victories are alike but defeats are wildly different.
Kohli is younger than Dhoni by seven years
India went down in a blaze of glory, attempting to make 364 runs in a day and coming startlingly close.
Playing for a draw was never an option, said Kohli, perhaps aware that India had the batting to win the Test, but not to draw it. Still, there was promise of a change in the standard narrative. Optimism is infectious, and it is easy to catch it off a captain who is full of it.
Kohli projected that optimism and spirit right from the days when he led India to the Under-19 World Cup win. He was marked out as future captain.
The IPL has a lot to answer for. But in Kohli's case, it actually helped.
Finding a balance
After initially tasting its many enticements, Kohli settled down. In his corner was his team Royal Challengers Bangalore coach Ray Jennings, who told him that the Under-19 triumph would soon be forgotten, and that he would be judged as an adult cricketer. Anil Kumble helped to channelise and focus all that energy. And he was made captain in anticipation of the bigger job to come.
While Kohli's captaincy in the one-day format has been aggressive and focused on winning, in Tests he will have to learn - as his bowlers too will - the virtues of patience and long-term planning.
Indian cricket will have to find a balance between Dhoni's tendency to let things drift and Kohli's impatience with uneventful overs and sessions. There is an element of fishing in the longer format. You put out your bait and wait. Kohli will have to learn the waiting game.
Whether it is a reflection of the times, a consequence of playing too many matches in the shorter formats of the game or a question of temperament, India's cricket is currently characterised by an impatience that makes them perform well below potential.
Bowlers are in a hurry to take wickets or simply run through their overs, batsmen seem to have forgotten how to play session-to-session. Kohli will have to rid the team of bad habits.
While many believe that a captain is only as good as his team, the best ones have inspired their teams to play above themselves. Pataudi for one,Mike Brearleyor another.
Kohli's advantage is that he is the best batsman in the side, and there are no immediate candidates for his job. In other words, he will be left alone to develop his full potential as captain, unhampered by the need to constantly watch his back - an occupational hazard with Indian captains of the past.
As a dramatic year in cricket draws to a close, I am reminded of the great philosopher Sophocles, who wrote in Oedipus Rex: "I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect." He speaks cryptically of hindsight, that priceless tool of wisdom. But to use hindsight as a convenient excuse for not being prescient is sometimes the domain of fools and knaves.
A year ago, the television coverage of the Boxing Day Test was blighted by a skit that had nothing going for it, even with the wisdom of hindsight. At the time, a long time before the tragedy of Phillip Hughes could ever have been forecast, I wrote in scathing tonesabout the gross stupidity of one of the world's fastest bowlers hurling bouncers at an unarmed, unskilled participant with half the Channel Nine commentary crew standing around giggling. We didn't need an accidental death to tell us that Brett Lee bowling deliberate no-balls at talk-show host Piers Morgan, following him with short balls aimed at his head as he backed away to square leg, to the cackling of Shane Warne, Michael Slater and Michael Vaughan, with Mitchell Johnson and Craig McDermott watching on is just plain negligence on the part of all parties involved. These were the same people who visited Hughes in hospital, cried at his funeral and shook their heads in disbelief at the sheer bad luck of it.
Did it not occur to them that bowling no-balls at the body of an unskilled batsman might just have ended in tragedy? Did it take the death of a skilled batsman, a professional cricketer, early on a hook shot, for all those involved with The Cricket Show to reflect on the utter inappropriateness of this stunt? This from a programme that unashamedly targets young viewers (and does it extremely well in that genre).
To be fair, you only have to read some of the comments on that article of mine to see that this brain fade wasn't the exclusive domain of these star cricketers, production staff and medicos. Clearly many of the respondents, perhaps fuelled by a dislike of Morgan, did not have the foresight to imagine the sort of injury that could so easily have befallen the batsman (if indeed that can be called "batting"). Don't believe how bad it looks in hindsight? Find Brett Lee v Piers Morgan on Youtube. Ask anyone involved in planning, executing or being a bystander to this stunt if they would be willing to participate in something similar this year, perhaps getting a speedster like Pat Cummins to try and hit another celebrity in the head (and not even having the decency to bowl from behind the white line)? Any takers for a repeat show?
A series that has showcased so much high-octane cricket in the dignified shadow of Hughes' memory doesn't deserve to be remembered for all the wrong reasons
While on the "should have known better" theme, both teams involved in the current series need to look at the so-called "banter" being exchanged. With the IPL friendships that now exist, you'd think the Indians would have worked out that it rarely works to sledge an Aussie fast bowler. Where was the upside to poking a dormant brown snake? One can understand the tactic if Mitchell Johnson had been running rampant and they were looking for anything to put him off his game. Instead, for a brief but telling period in Brisbane, they riled him to the point where he not only scored 88 and turned a sizeable deficit into a crucial lead but then came out and blasted out the Indian top order. That Rohit Sharma was in the thick of it defies belief - here's a bloke on the verge of being dropped himself, having done very little in the series, taunting Johnson about his lack of impact. The only impact we are likely to see from Rohit for the rest of the series was Hot Spot on the edge of his bat as he was fired out for nought.
Shane Watson belongs in the same camp; he is never far from a chat, but for a player who continues to polarise even the staunchest Australian fans, he might be better advised to leave the verbals alone and try to convince the nation that he is a budding allrounder - if only he could learn to bat. How much hindsight is required to convince the selectors that he is not the answer at first drop? They might work on the reverse-hindsight theory - keep giving him enough chances until he makes a score and that vindicates the selection.
The Australians, too, need to rethink their targeting of Virat Kohli. Abrasive he may be, hot-headed he is, but by Jove, the boy can bat. Baiting him doesn't work, it just brings out the mongrel in him. He had to score three hundreds this series to underscore the futility of that tactic? His habit of spoiling for a scrap, regardless of whether it's his fight or not, will see him miss a Test soon for disciplinary reasons. You don't need 20/20 vision to predict that!
Ian Chappell, who knows a thing or two about playing tough cricket, has long been cautioning the ICC about allowing the incessant chatter to get to the point where someone gets too hot under the collar and a physical confrontation leaves an indelible stain on a game that is in an awkward no-man's land after the sombre events of the recent past. It is not enough to leave it up to the players to decide where that fine line is between banter, gamesmanship and that final sledge that sparks an unseemly confrontation. The umpires in this series have been far too lax in allowing the players the latitude of walking that fine line - the palpable tension after tea on day four in Melbourne threatens to descend into open warfare unless the umpires take more control.
A series that has showcased so much high-octane cricket in the dignified shadow of Hughes' memory doesn't deserve to be remembered for all the wrong reasons. The ghosts of that ugly series in 2007-08 do not need to be dug up from their uneasy graves. This is not a lesson we need to learn, again, in hindsight.
It is probably incumbent upon the match referee to gather both teams together at close of play and remind them that some situations, like the Monkeygate affair, are too hard to retrieve if tensions run too high. It would make a mockery of all the goodwill that has flowed through the cricket community in the wake of sadness, black armbands and moving eulogies. He might do well to remind them all of this old Irish proverb: "May you have the hindsight to know where you've been, the foresight to know where you're going and the insight to know when you're going too far."
Indian fans are a feverish lot. The truffle-like taste of victory, the bitter-gourd flavour of defeat, the sweet relief of stealing a draw - all this we know. But the adrenaline high of losing? The exhilaration of defeat? This is new.
I set the alarm for 5am and watched every ball of the fourth innings in Adelaide. I watched eight wickets fall in 26 overs as India collapsed from 205 for 2 at tea to 315 all out, without feeling suicidal or homicidal.
A friend suggested that 364 to win in a day's play was always so unlikely that it eased the transition from the delirium of hope to the reality of defeat, but I know he's wrong.
He's wrong because I didn't spend Saturday evening ploughing the rich, dark loam of grievance. I didn't think bad thoughts about Ian Gould for giving Shikhar Dhawan out, caught off the shoulder, or Marais Erasmus for fingering Ajinkya Rahane when the ball wasn't in the same latitude as his bat. And this wasn't because I was being fair-minded about the many decisions that went our way; I'm a fan, not a forensic expert. No, it had everything to do with the purposeful vigour with which the Indian batsmen, led by their captain, played.
I have not, so far, been an admirer of Virat Kohli. It's hard to like someone who seems so pleased with himself. But on the evidence of this Test match it's time the caretaker captain for the Adelaide Test took the job permanently.
There were times during the Test when Kohli's field placings were too cute by half, and the way he handled his bowlers at the start of the Australian second innings was, if you want to be kind, eccentric
This has little to do with Kohli's tactical nous: there were times during the Test when his field placings were too cute by half, and the way he handled his bowlers at the start of the Australian second innings was, if you want to be kind, eccentric. Twelve of the first 20 overs with the new ball were bowled by a debutant legspinner and a part-time offbreak bowler, and the fastest bowler in the team, Varun Aaron, didn't get a bowl till the opposition had put a hundred on the board.
No, Kohli should be India's captain because leading an inexperienced side against an obviously superior Australian team playing at home, he didn't take a step back and he didn't stop trying.
After the wretchedness of the last three years, when Indian touring sides sleepwalked their way through routs, led by a captain whose response to pressure spanned a narrow range from indifference through inertness to insouciance, it was good to see a stubborn team led by a man who actually seemed to enjoy the challenges of the long game.
The most extraordinary thing about India's performance in this Test was that the team backed itself to score more than 350 runs in a day's play twice. The Indians scored 369 runs on the third day of the Test, and then, on the fifth, fell short by 48, backing themselves to score 364 to win.
There was a reason why Michael Clarke batted out the fourth day without declaring or having a go at the Indians late in the evening. The reason was: he had seen the same team chase 517 and get inside 150 runs of that total for the loss of five wickets in three sessions. Clarke is an adventurous captain but he isn't a suicidal idiot. Unlike the pundits who were harrumphing about 300 runs being more than enough, he knew he needed all the insurance he could get.
When Kohli was caught at midwicket, hooking Mitchell Johnson just before close on the third day, he wasn't being careless or irresponsible. He was putting a marker down. He was, to use Ian Chappell's favourite word, showing "intent".
I think the five Tests in England, where the Indians tried and failed to wage defensive, attritional battles against a first-rate seam attack in favourable conditions, had persuaded Kohli that grafting a response to Australia's massive first-innings score wasn't an option.
It was a crucial moment, even, perhaps, a turning point. Had Kohli survived till stumps, India would have walked out the next morning with two set batsmen at the crease and the very real prospect of chasing down Australia's first-innings total. But from Kohli's point of view, the choice was not between caution and recklessness. The choice was between self-assertion and subordination. He had been hit on the helmet by Johnson the first ball he faced, and the subsequent tenor of his innings was shaped by his determination not to be the coconut in a coconut shy. He repeatedly hooked Johnson in front of square in both innings, and it's fair to say that the way he imposed himself on Australia's most lethal quick bowler had something to do with the scores India made.
I think the five Tests in England, where the Indians tried and failed to wage defensive, attritional battles, had persuaded Kohli that grafting a response to Australia's massive first-innings score wasn't an option
After the match, Rahul Dravid asked Kohli if he had ever thought of playing for a draw on the final day, particularly after the flurry of wickets that followed M Vijay's departure. Kohli was categorical: the team had committed itself to going for the runs and he had no regrets about the way "the boys" had played. In particular, he had no regrets about being caught trying to loft Nathan Lyon to the mid-on boundary. There was no point, he said, trying to keep the offspinner out on a pitch that was turning square. You had to challenge him.
Unlike the reproachful post-mortems written on the post-tea batting collapse, Kohli blamed no one, not even Wriddhiman Saha, who was universally condemned for trying to follow up a six and a four off Lyon with a fatal hoick, instead of keeping his skipper sober company. Kohli was proud of them all.
It was a lovely conversation. Dravid, the greatest defensive batsman of modern times, was patently delighted by the daring and attacking intent shown by the younger man. They agreed that India lost to the better team, trying to pull off a win that, had it come off, would have been magnificent heist. Between the death-or-glory determination of Kohli and the cut-your-losses cool of Dhoni, all of us I think, know which one we prefer.
Kohli hit not one but two centuries chasing the prize. Like Browning's bird he sang his song twice over just in case the Aussies thought he couldn't recapture that "first fine careless rapture". The reason we turned off our televisions buoyed by defeat and not cast down by it was that the Indians didn't just perform, they competed with an uninhibited abandon that amounted to rapture.
In the past few years we have watched dismayed as gifted Indian teams that could have been contenders collapsed because they didn't seem up for the fight. This match was different: Kohli's men showed us that under his watch at least they won't die wondering.
Mukul Kesavan is a writer based in New Delhi This article was first published in the Kolkata Telegraph
"The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anaïs Nin
When I consider this wonderful insight from the great American author, I wonder about what it takes to fulfil one's own "greatness", to blossom, bringing alive the very depths of one's soul. When I read Nin again and she says, "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage", I start to understand what can truly take us forward, beyond the ordinary, into the realm of greatness.
India are a vast energy, a thriving modern-day eruption. They are forcing their will on the world, in particular on the cricket world. Sachin Tendulkar did it for nearly two and half decades with a keen eye and trusty blade, transfixing all of us with his serenity and his strokes. He was the king of great. Around him emerged more versions of it - Rahul Dravid andVirender Sehwag, for example. Yet it was Sachin who spread the word loud and afar.
And with his departure rises Virat Kohli. In some ways this young giant is a combination of all those three, learning a bit from them all to shape his own unique creation. He is the next chosen one. He exudes the intensity of Rahul, the audacity of Virender, and the extraordinary range of Sachin. That doesn't make him better, simply sui generis, his own unique kind.
In many ways, he follows the essence of life: loving what he does and doing what he loves, and learning all he can, often at a rapid pace. Kohli has gone from pupil to teacher quickly, and his next level is to become a master. That he will achieve. It's in his eyes.
I watched this young 19-year-old when he joined Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2008, for the inaugural IPL. He was bursting to impress. Often he fell victim to his own seduction, his growing, glowing image, mixed in with his confusion about who to bat and be like, as he had so many choices. I often encouraged him to simply play straighter, be wiser in shot selection, put the odds more in his favour. Alas, he was too young, and rather than listen to a crusty old stager from god knows where, he was intent on being like the heroes of the day and indulging in the new rage of sending the ball into orbit.
Over time, he found that his own style and his stamp and signature were more than enough for him to hold his own. His ownership of the No. 3 position in the Indian one-day team has secured his legacy long term; now he just needs to go to the well day in and day out, to cement it.
His badge is one of courage. He is fiercely focused. He is often fiery and emotional, possibly a product of his upbringing in Delhi. Yes, a fire burns within, sometimes wildly. His aggressive streetfighting qualities are worn on his sleeve. He looks for a fight. He singles out opposition for face-to-face interrogation; he even confronts officials.
He will need to learn rapidly that to be a true leader and role model to millions all over the globe, the ugly stuff needs to be tamed, even put away, while retaining the right to find that balance of challenge and the correct conduct. It's an important lesson, one Sachin and Rahul will have taughtn him, yet his own restlessness is still dominant. Someone needs to guide him on this vital code.
At present he is a beacon in this rebuilding team, while some of those around him who have come in to fill the void left by the big three struggle to cope. Already he is the leader of the batting line-up, with just 22 Tests to his name, and so a huge responsibility beckons.
Kohli's audacity is shameless. He is bold and beautiful in his shot selection and his style. When in the mood he can carve anyone apart, just as Sehwag did when awoken. Kohli will need to be reminded of Sehwag, that temporary loss of form that came in patches and grew to become one patch at the end. He needs to keep working the engine and stoking the fire. He will, without question.
Not unsurprisingly, Kohli will have learned mostly from Sachin, and even if it isn't so obvious, it's slowly becoming clearer. His stance is more closed than Sachin's, resulting in the leg-side stroke played around the pad, yet it is straightening year by year. By the time he reaches full throttle in a couple of years he will be perfectly aligned, as the master was. His last-second tap of the bat as the bowler gathers is such a classic and vital element from the Sachin book. This last tap sends a spark of electricity through his body and his eyes, then feet, then through his flowing vortex sword, all coming alive as one. Every ball is treated with puissance, a mighty force.
Kohli's audacity is shameless. He is bold and beautiful in his shot selection and his style. When in the mood he can carve anyone apart, just as Sehwag did when awoken
Kohli is forming an unprecedented record in one-dayers for scoring hundreds. The quest to do so in Test cricket is at hand. He has five so far in 37 innings, and should rightly correct that ratio, to one every six innings at least, as time unfolds. Natural, too, will be the desire to score double-hundreds, big daddies as they have become known. His positioning at four will be the ideal stage in which to show a prowess even Sachin would be proud of.
Helping his cause will be the indestructible Cheteshwar Pujara. They are the same age and have the same hunger to carry India as Dravid and Tendulkar did. They will bat together, carrying each other in the vein of the finest combos in the game. Pujara doesn't have the same range of strokes as Kohli, yet he has a vast reservoir of concentration and resolve. Kohli will pass his final exam, that of scoring the huge scores, by watching his more studious partner. This will complete his finishing-school education. From there, Kohli will master the world.
How will New Zealand dismiss these two in the coming weeks? Higher energy. They have to hit the Indian top order with absolute precision, pace, swing and accuracy, on or just outside stump. They must bowl one side of the wicket, use two lengths - the shoulder-high bouncer with muscle, and the one that hits the top of off stump with pump.
Muscle and pump. Anything else will be dispatched or manipulated. And they will need patience from session to session. Dismissing either Pujara or Kohli in under two hours' batting is a dagger in India's heart. If it doesn't come early on, the energy must not drop. This, in essence, is how you win Test matches.
Richard Hadlee did it with support from honest, resilient lieutenants and a surface with enough juice. He found his arousal level and paced it through the day. His last spell of the day could be just as telling and exacting as his first. This is the mentality Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Neil Wagner and Corey Anderson will need to execute in the two Tests ahead. If they don't, then they'd better learn fast.
It will be a fascinating series. Sadly, just as it hots up it will be over. It's a waste. Another example of wayward administration, but let's not go there. Instead, let's go to the Tests looking to experience a new breed of excellence: Kohli and Pujara against Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor.
Whoever scores the most hundreds between the four will hold the upper hand, for they will deny and dent the ability of the opposition's attack to clear out both innings to win. Whichever pair fails to notch the big scores or partnerships will allow the opposition the chance to penetrate the lesser mortals who surround these elite.
All four are in mesmeric form. It won't help the sleep patterns of the bowlers opposing them. Yet I am predicting the locals will sleep better in their own beds. For India the nightmare might just continue.
But then again there is that maturing force called Virat Kohli.
