He’s now been caught behind the wicket in four out of five innings on this tour of Australia
Alagappan Muthu16-Dec-2024Steven Smith is a reasonable authority on batting. He understands the subject enough to conduct the odd experiment or two. “I’ve changed my set-up pretty much every game I’ve played for the last 15 years,” he said. On Sunday, Smith spent a little time talking about the importance of scoring a good 30 and he seemed earnest, so let’s ignore the fact that when he was dismissed for 101 he threw his helmet and flung his gloves like they were carrying disease.India lost three batters by the time they got to 30 on Monday. Theirs was a tortured 30. KL Rahul was hit flush on the wrist to start the second over. He expected that good length ball to arrive somewhere around his knee, maybe a bit higher. So when he went forward to meet it his hands were a little low. From that point though, with a throbbing left wrist to remind him, Rahul made an essential adjustment. He has been India’s best batter on this tour because he’s put a premium on playing with soft hands and close to the body. He took it to a whole other level in Brisbane. He was almost retracting his bat at the moment of impact with the ball to take all the sting out of it.Virat Kohli didn’t seem like he was worried about what the ball was doing. That’s served him well in the past. There have been low-bounce wickets back home which didn’t spook him from going on the back foot. There have been high-bounce wickets out here which seemed to add to the glow of every shot he pulled off. There have been seaming wickets which couldn’t sway him from driving on the up. There have been spinning wickets which made his flicks against the turn that little bit more chef’s kiss.All of that has contributed to Kohli having immense trust in his method. In Melbourne at the 2022 T20 World Cup, on a Test match pitch against Pakistan’s fast bowlers, he could still dictate terms from 31 for 4 without changing anything. He planted that front foot down and cricket bent to his will. When he tried that here on Monday, against Josh Hazelwood at the end of the fourth over, a fairly full ball came up to take the shoulder of his bat. Would Kohli incorporate this new information into the way he went about scoring runs?Related
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He did. In a way.He became Kohli-er than normal. Eager to get on that front foot. Looking for the slightest opportunity to drive. Hazlewood gave him one in the eighth over.This scene has played out several times – in four out of five innings this series. Like the part in the movie where someone gets separated from the group, stumbles upon a suspicious doorway and simply has to open it. Kohli’s cover drive has become a horror movie trope. You could almost hear the India fans at the ground saying, “no, don’t do it.” You did hear them saying “why did he do it?”Well for one, Kohli appreciated that when conditions were as tough as this, scoring runs is doubly important. Travis Head’s performance over the course of this series lends weight to that argument. He walked in with Australia in trouble both in Adelaide and in Brisbane and put the pressure right back on the opposition and that’s worked out fairly well. For another, according to ESPNcricinfo ball-by-ball data in the last two years, Kohli had been dismissed only once by a fast bowler tempting him wide outside off stump, while averaging 71 and striking at 145. And this ball was wide. It wasn’t in the corridor, which is as much a Kohli weakness as it is for every batter.It is tempting to install ODI Kohli into these situations. His success was built on being risk-averse, especially at the start of his innings, and he grew to supplant one of the greatest batters India has ever produced. It has been a bit jarring to see Test Kohli lunge headlong into the traps Australia have placed all through the series.In the first innings in Perth, when the danger wasn’t really seam movement as much as the pace and bounce, he worked against himself by batting a foot or so out of his crease and then pressing forward to a ball that Hazlewood aimed into the middle of the pitch. He might just have been trying to replicate the methods that he has used in the past to overcome difficult conditions and put fast bowlers on notice. But the fact that he could only play half a shot to that delivery, and was completely surprised by it, is hard to ignore. He shifted his stance back a bit during the century he made in the second innings, almost an admission the gamble hadn’t come off.The pink ball presented him with a different challenge and his first innings dismissal in Adelaide, where he was uncertain whether to play or leave was startling as well. Kohli is rarely in two minds. As much as he is hounded for the pattern of dismissal most associated with him – chasing outside his off stump – he goes at those balls heartily. He is clear they are run-scoring opportunities. Those dismissals packed in with this one in Brisbane, where he had seen evidence that hitting on the up was risky with the taller Australian bowlers getting more out of the new Kookaburra ball, and was unable to find a suitable solution to it, is troubling. He used to be able to rise above difficult conditions. Both at home and now here in Australia, he’s not quite done that.Smith modified his trigger in a way that he thought might help him combat the bounce at the Gabba. Rahul seemed so conditioned to holding his bat softly that he lost control of it while he was patting the pitch in between balls. Head loves staying beside the ball and taking every opportunity to free his arms. Marnus Labuschagne and Nathan McSweeney tried to leave the ball on length as much as they could. Whether they succeeded or not, they had contingency plans for good bowling. Kohli, for once, seems to be lagging behind.
