Cricket column: Kohli was the man, but two boys were brilliant

Nowadays, Virat Kohli doesn’t celebrate his centuries in a big way. A hint of a smile and a simple wave of the bat at the crowd and a confident glance towards the dressing room where his mates are on their feet and clapping for him. That’s it. And yesterday, as the TV umpire gave his verdict in favour of India after England reviewed an lbw decision against James Anderson that signalled a resounding 246-run victory for India, Kohli raised his right fist into the air, shook hands with Anderson and Jonny Bairstow and led his army off the field.
No arrogant, extravagant celebration. If you think that was the sign of a maturing man, maybe yes, but look at him when his bowlers beat the bat or took the wicket. The reaction was aggressive, the frustration was loud and the celebration was contagious. If I must make a choice between the mature and the cocky man, my pick will be the latter.
Post-match, Kohli said it was a lack of intent to score runs on the part of his counterpart Alastair Cook which had given India the assurance that it was just a matter of a couple wickets and then England would “crumble pretty quickly”. Haseeb Hameed walked back to the dressing room in the 51st over and Cook in the 60th, and the rest crumbled inside 38 overs for 71 runs. Exactly how Kohli had seen it happening.
After scoring his 14th Test century in the first innings of his 50th Test match, and after knocking up 81 runs in the second — each run boldly sending his “intent” to the England camp — he was the right man for the man-of-the-match choice. Still, it’s unfair to pretend that we haven’t seen something outstanding from two young guns, Hameed and Jayant Jadav.
Hameed, playing his second Test, was run out in the first innings for which it’s not entirely unfair to fault Joe Root for his initial intent and later hesitation. In the second, he was out off an unplayable shooter from Ravichandran Ashwin.
The first ball he faced in the chase was a nasty bouncer that hit him hard on the glove. He just walked away, as he used to do, and was ready to face the next ball which Mohammed Sami sent down the leg side. Look who was nervous! Sami, as well as Umesh Yadav, threw a few more bouncers at Hameed, one of which hit him just above the rib gear, but the frail guy was not ready to get intimidated and gift his wicket.
Jadav, primarily an offspinner, was making his debut, and it was a pleasure to watch him bat with awesome temperament in both the innings. In the first, he came at the fall of the seventh wicket and only 363 runs were on the board. The psychological mark of 450 was a long way off at that time, but when he finally departed 84 balls later, showing a composure and calmness that was missing from some of his famous, experienced seniors, India were close there, at 440.
Jadav’s second innings contribution was even better. He walked in at the fall of Kohli, and there was a lot of time left for lunch. In the company of the last man Sami, he helped the team post a lead of 400 plus and, in the process, made the chase tougher for England inside 150 overs, spread out over the post-lunch session on day four and the entire fifth day. He was the leader of the tail pack and if the tail had folded up without a fight well before the lunch break, England would have been chasing 360 runs or so, with plenty of time to block, tackle and take the fight to the Indian camp on day five. That might have forced Kohli to go about the task a lot less aggressively than he actually did.
The pitch in Rajkot was quite un-Indian, and the one in Vizag wasn’t typically Indian. There’s a lot of talk about character and intent of this England team, but we will have to wait beyond Mohali to get a real feel of it all, perhaps.

The writer is a freelance contributor based in India. All the views and opinions expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not reflect those of Times of Oman