- Thursday, April 18, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
DOES quantity guarantee quality always?
Looking at India captain Virat Kohli’s style of running the show in the ongoing Test series in India, this question becomes pertinent more than once. And the batsman in the man is not helping his case either.
Kohli sparked yet another controversy at the toss ahead of the fourth Test match against the Three Lions at the Kennington Oval on Thursday (2). Justifying his decision to ignore veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin for yet another game in the series, the Indian captain said Ravindra Jadeja suited the conditions better since the home team had four left-handed batsmen in its side.
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Well, for a player who has 413 Test wickets in his kitty and picked a five-wicket haul in a county game before the start of the series, that’s an immense letdown.
If one goes by the statistics, Ashwin has the best bowling average in England among the SENA countries – 28.11. He hasn’t been as successful as a wicket-taker in English conditions but given his better performance than Jadeja in Tests in England (the left-arm spinner averages almost 48 there) and the fact that India have just lost a match by a massive margin, not many opinions would have gone against Kohli had the lanky spinner be played.
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But that’s how Kohli’s captaincy goes.
Sporting careers are not one-way traffic. Just like the ups, the downs are as relevant in the journey of a sportsperson. Kohli has so far been seen as a man who does no wrong but only when things look rosy. When things do not go well for the team, then Kohli tends to lose his temper even more and one suspects he acts then more out of stubbornness than logic. The Oval perhaps witnessed exactly that aspect of the man’s captaincy.
The world of cricket sees two types of captains. Those who lead more with their personal skills in the game than leadership skills. For example, Sachin Tendulkar. The second type includes those who struggle personally at times but inspire with their man-management skills. Sourav Ganguly’s name comes instantly to the mind.
Kohli’s success as a player and captain has been intertwined. He has excelled as a batsman and his captaincy too delivered as long as his bat talked. But when his personal form has plummeted as has been seen since 2019 when he had his last international hundred, his captaincy too has seen a tough phase and this has left the man with very limited options to overcome the situation with ease.
One greatest drawback of Kohli is that he makes enemies on the field far too easily and quickly. The net result of those rivalries is an ego-packed confrontation and with the pressure only growing heavier on his shoulders, Kohli has started showing signs of weakness. But the aggression in him prevents him from calming down to address the issues, which results in him turning even more jittery. Kohli presents a perfect anti-climax to what Mahendra Singh Dhoni stood for.
At a time when his stars and stats are not glittering the way he would have liked them to, Kohli needs to take a step back. But he is instead hitting out at bowlers verbally even with a poor form and they are playing on his ego, challenging to play the ball and he is falling into the trap and edging his destiny into the fingers of the fielders.
Kohli’s problem as a batsman has been compounded by the poor forms of the entire Indian middle order. The likes of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane are dragging on to score runs and that has put Kohli in a quandary. And with less runs on the board, the captain is feeling the pressure and the result has been more of a tactical mess.
The Indian captain has his share of positives. He is someone who loves his captaincy and wants to smash the opposition into smithereens in the mind game. The style might not look appealing to all but in modern-day sports, the ‘Kangaroofication’ of cricket-playing has its effectiveness.
He has also inspired his colleagues in matters of fitness. It is said that other players in the team idolise Kohli’s food habits, which speaks volume about the benchmark he sets.
But all these look fine and smooth as long as things go in your favour. Kohli has always tried to dictate terms whenever it has come to his captaincy and that could be a dangerous ploy when nothing clicks well. The same positiveness of Kohli when India win transforms into mindless bullying when they lose.
For Kohli, the lack of a softer middle path has made the test harder for him. Suddenly, people have started asking the credibility of India’s most successful captain in Tests.
Is it quantity over quality when it comes to captain Kohli?
The fourth Test has the answer.
