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Showing posts with label Opening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Opening. Show all posts
India needs to toss it up on top.
Sounds extreme, but to challenge Australia, India needs to challenge itself - and that could mean some extreme steps.
Runs and words, with love, from Rohit to Virat.
For years, Virat
Kohli has had no equal in the Indian Test team. It was beyond stats, runs,
captaincy – it was about persona. And as it grew with Kohli’s beard, his mate’s
beards grew too. Kohli’s eyebrows meanwhile kept a watchful eye, like an
emperor on his subjects.
Teams were
changed, players were swapped, anyone could play, almost anyone could perish.
Rarely did the same team play two Tests in a row. Rarely did a different Kohli
turn up. In that uncertainty, Kohli found his centre.
It paid
dividends. It also slid into the growth model. And it could be direct too.
Without knowing, here was Kohli pedaling all three mutual fund plans.
Sahi hai or not, who was to question? Kohli was the big
bull, raging on, series win after series win.
Yet the
fact that no player came close to Kohli in stature was to the team’s detriment.
Until Rohit
Sharma, heaped all those centuries in the World Cup, demanding a wager be taken
– to make Rohit open in Test cricket too.
Stranger
things have happened. Three seasons on Netflix have documented that. This
however, was up there with it.
***
Before
Rohit Sharma walked out in whites on the Mahatma’s birthday, he was still
fighting for his cricketing independence – he was a Twenty20, one-day man, but
Test cricket had chained him.
From 6th
November 2013 to October, 2, 2019, he had only played 27 Tests. To get a sense
of how long back that debut was, take into account, it was also Tendulkar’s
swansong.
Tendulkar
stopped playing, and Rohit couldn’t start playing.
The cricket
world was divided into Rohit for Tests and please don’t test Rohit anymore.
It’s testing.
But with
Shastri as head coach, Kohli as captain, a silly distraction of an Instagram
unfollow, Rohit was to open the batting against the red ball. In India however.
With Murali
Vijay, 35, a distant memory, Prithvi Shaw suspended midair in his teens, Hanuma
Vihari ordered to make an exception in Melbourne; Rohit’s time had come.
He had
scored faster than any of the top order in the first innings of that Melbourne
victory. Not something Shastri the salesman will allow anyone to forget easily.
Rohit came
in with the backing and belief few Indian cricketers have seen. The world was
ready for Rohit’s miracles. Was Rohit ready for them?
Before the
South Africa Test series, middle order/muddle order Rohit Sharma had a Test
average of 39.62, 3 centuries, 10 fifties.
Three home
Tests and 529 runs later, his Test average has shot up to 48.04. Oh. Yeah.
That’s how much.
In three
Tests, he’s doubled his century count, make that six. He had a double to boot.
And his boot was firmly on the Proteas.
Man of the
match, man of the moment, man of the series, man on the moon, Rohit Sharma Test
cricketer had arrived.
***
The lightness followed. Rohit is funny guy to Virat’s angry young man. He didn’t miss an opportunity to add some levity in a press conference, confirming that the reporters will now have to write something nice about him.
It was just
Rohit being Rohit – great timing, not a shot played in anger, but yet much like
his fierce pulls, it went the distance. It impacted those around.
They
tittered, how could they not. Rohit had disarmed them. Much as he had disarmed
a truckload of critics through the series.
Arms may be
taken up again, another series, away perhaps, in New Zealand, or wherever India
goes next, but for now, Rohit had scored more runs in a single innings than
South Africa could in both – Rohit Sharma 212 > SA 162, 133 @Ranchi
Perhaps, all Rohit Sharma
needed to come off in Test cricket was his name and number at the back of his
shirt.
Test
cricket obliged, as did Rohit.
***
Standing at
second slip, alongside Virat at first, Rohit negates the excitement around a
possible review. Between Kohli and Jadeja, left to themselves they would
happily use all India’s and South Africa’s reviews too. Rohit is the tangent at
hand that balances power – the counter opinion, the equal voice. On the field,
as it happens.
One that so
far has been missing in the Indian Test team. And even though Pujara had the
might of runs, the man of the series in Australia, much like Rahane, he is not
an all format India player.
Rohit
Sharma is now T20, ODI and Test opener. He has centuries in all three formats.
He is an ODI double centurion and IPL winner many times over.
In the
Indian team sponsors, Byju’s advertisement with some of the men in blue, guess
who Virat Kohli is talking to in the last frame?
Rohit
Sharma, who else?
***
Wasup Virat? Is Kohli dreaming World Cup, playing IPL?
I often
wonder about those that follow the IPL closely. Which is to say, I often wonder
about myself.
While we
slide into the 12th season, is it a bit too much to look for reason?
Should it be played? That is still being asked. Should it be played so close to
a World Cup – be it before one or after one?
Try as I
may, putting that 2011 season behind me is not easy. Should it be? Please don’t
say what happened in 2011. If you’re still wondering, please stop reading.
Oh, you’re
still here. So you know, Sri Lanka lost the World Cup that year. The only way
you can lose the World Cup is if you make the finals.
But India
went a step further, and lost it too. Not the World Cup, but in the IPL that
followed. They followed that with marathon Test losses in England and
Australia.
Who won the
IPL in 2011? Remember that one? Did you have to google that?
Dhoni did.
Who won the
World Cup in 2011?
Dhoni did.
Who lost
those Test series in 2011-12?
Dhoni did.
So, here we
are in 2019. And there will be fresh answers. Can Kohli be the answer?
Can he win
the IPL in 2019? Looks unlikely. But back in 2007, when Shane Warne’s Rajasthan
Royals couldn’t get the ball beyond the square in their IPL opener, they looked
unlikely winners too.
Warne
possibly had more belief in winning the IPL then than Lalit Modi had in winning
it with the IPL. And that is a lot.
Warne’s
belief superseded his skills back then. And possibly those of his team. With
that thought, he rubbed so much belief into that bunch that they ended up doing
what they did.
RCB’s
greatest strength, that works in unison, is the crowd chant at Bangalore’s M
Chinnaswamy stadium.
Today, as
for many seasons now, Kohli has failed to believe that he is RCB’s greatest
strength. He believes, as do many that watch, that AB de Villiers is their
greatest strength.
Whether
those are appearances or fandom giving in to a spectacle, is of little consequence.
In spite of
ABde’s spectacular 70*(41) vs MI, RCB lost. In spite of five wickets in hand.
In spite of this and in spite of that.
After three
matches and three defeats, RCB are at the bottom. Silver lining, they lost to
the best three teams. The first defeat, more against a surface than a team.
The
spotlight, as often has been in the recent past, will be on Kohli. Not just the
batsman but the captain. How he walks out of Dhoni’s looming shadow and trusts
his own instincts will be telling across the next two tournaments.
Whether he
is prepared to walk past ABde’s aura and trust his own, could salvage RCB’s
sinking season 12.
Opening the
batting in 2016, Kohli clocked 973 runs. At 152, his highest strike rate for
any season. Throw in all his four IPL centuries. KL Rahul too hit the high
notes partnering him on top.
Now neither
Rahul nor the opening remain. Instead, makeshift openers. If makeshift or half
measures defined Kohli, he would be a fraction of the player he is.
But the
World Cup looms and Kohli is in conservation mode. A mode that defies him from
opening, scoring hundreds, winning games singlehandedly.
Top that,
ABde comes in at four. If there is one lesson to be learnt from Sunrisers
Hyderabad, it’s stack your best T20 batsmen upfront – David Warner and Jonny
Bairstow open. And dent the opposition so hard, no body shop will fix them.
And if for
whatever reason Kohli doesn’t see himself opening, then it’s time to push ABde
to the top. Look no further than Rajasthan Royals to see what Jos Buttler’s
definitive knocks on top achieve – strike rates well in excess of 150 opening
the batting win matches. And mess with bowlers’ minds. So much easier for those
that follow to feast on.
While
leaders and batsmen such as Dhoni have dovetailed their ODI story into the IPL
and thrived; it’s taken years of sameness in thought and personnel.
While Dhoni
thrives on calm, does Kohli thrive on disruption? His batting order and bowling
sequence is anything but that. Is Kohli’s disruptive veneer hiding a more
conservative cricketing mind? A mind that brings on spin in the seventh over to
Quinton de Kock? With an off-break bowler in the XI, why would you allow de
Kock the breathing room for seven overs? And if Ali is too part-time, surely
Chahal, often a power-play mainstay, should have gatecrashed de Kock’s party.
RCB’s third
match, and Kohli opened the bowling with Moeen Ali. It’s another thing,
Bairstow and not Warner took strike. 14 off the over. By the third over, Chahal
was on. 11 off the over. Two overs and 25 runs later, Kohli dropped the spin
option in the power play.
Then there
is Kohli the T20 batsmen, not too unlike his ODI avatar. Scarcely playing in
the air, unless a Bumrah bouncer (and IPL promo) beseech him to.
Even before
season 12 began, Kohli was looking to mother his World Cup squad; to see if the
workload could be balanced. Trouble is, there is very little balance in the IPL.
In spite of doing away with some of its excesses, the itineraries and summer
will be just as punishing.
Perhaps,
it’s time for Kohli to adopt an approach that has served him well in Test
cricket. Perhaps, it’s time for all of Kohli to be switched on.
Whether
this means he opens or Parthiv doesn’t, it’s up to him. In sport, it’s tiresome
to keep losing because of the same old mistakes.
So far RCB
has opened with Kohli/Patel, Patel/Ali, Patel/Hetmyer. Fourth match, Hetmyer/
Grandhomme?
To stop worrying
about Moeen and Partthiv’s utility down the order, could be a start. Once
you’re not bothered about your No. 6 and 7’s batting, you’re already living in
the moment.
And isn’t
that what T20 cricket is about?
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