Virat Kohli said his team won the series. The skipper was right in lauding the collective effort which brought about the predictable polishing off of the Kiwis. The third Test, however, belonged to Kohli himself. It appeared all the others who batted in the Test were batting on a different surface while to Kohli the pitch seemed a paradise he could spend days on without so much as a furrow rising on his forehead.
You could probably say the same about the other match winner, Ravichandran Ashwin. It seemed he was bowling on a minefield while everyone else was condemned to bowl on a plumb track and try to winkle batsmen out. The off spinner’s hold on the series was amply reflected in the consecutive match awards he won besides the man of the series.
There was so much time in the Test that Cheteshwar Pujara was afforded an opportunity to rack up his eighth Test century, a feat that the patient Ajinkya Rahane had achieved in the first innings in a kind of massive partnership with Kohli that touring teams fear when they come to India when it appears all they are forced to be is the bowling team for days together.
Even there, it was a kind of beauty and the beast exhibition of batsmanship as Kohli stood tall, putting the ball away off his hips in Greg Chappell style. In our need to paint the South Australian as a coaching villain who wrecked the team bonding we should not forget Greg was one of the most elegant batsman of his era, standing tall while being dismissive of the bowlers, driving them to the onside with the most attractive drives or clipping them finer with a straight bat splendidly employed in the true classical style.
An inbuilt sense of timing defines the art of batting and Kohli has it in spades. With a mere tap of the bat he could send the ball speeding to the wide mid on and mid wicket boundary, an effect rendered even more magical when the stroke is analysed in slow motion. It was not even a wave of the bat that sent the ball scurrying, more like a billiards player tapping the ball with his cue delicately to position the object ball precisely.
At the other end, Rahane could get himself into the most awkward body positions, ducking, weaving and on many occasions fending with his forearm with the arm guard contacting ball more than the gloves or bat. He showed remarkable temperament to laugh away the discomfort and the inelegant postures and getting on with putting the bad ball away with the relish of an accountant spotting a correct place for an entry in the ledger. His equable temperament is bound to make him a fixture in the middle order even if others have the talent to display in a more attractive way the art of batting.
The signs that Kohli was running into form was clear in the second innings of the second Test itself. It was a connoisseur’s delight that he should be able to slip into top gear in Indore’s debut Test, appropriately named the Holkar ground recalling the city’s historical ties with the game in the days of the Raj. The distinction of being the only Indian captain to have notched up double hundreds away and at home is no mean record, pointing as it does Kohli’s ability to lift the team performance when he is in form.
No account of the series would be complete without a look at the marvelous wares Ashwin put out as an orthodox spinner, his arc in the air a subtle invitation to the batsman to misjudge the flight and his line impeccable, particularly when constantly aimed outside the right hander’s off stump, which caused so much amusement as batsman after batsman perished trying to deal with that incoming threat. Keeping it out of the stumps proved too daunting an exercise in the second innings on a wearing pitch, even for the bemused left hander Mitchell Santner who seemed to read the spin better than most.
His career best haul brings Ashwin right back to the top of the Test bowler rankings. Those things may change quickly depending on where the matches are played, but the one thing that comes to mind now is some of the most cherished records like most wickets for India as in Anil Kumble’s collection of 619 may be under threat someday if there is so much Test cricket to be played in India. All records are meant to be broken and no one would mind if it comes along with Test wins of the kind Ashwin is crafting at the moment, with 220 Test wickets after just 39 Tests, the most any bowler in history has had.
