Virat Kohli puts a stop to questions arising from victory in England Test series
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With the victory of the Test series against England, the Indian team, under the captaincy of Virat Kohli, registered the 10th consecutive win of the Test series. With this, the questions arising on him as the captain of India also came to a halt.
When Kohli returned home before his delivery, the Ajinkya Rahane captaincy led to a Test draw and the team won two. The rounds of speculation started after the success of Ajinkya Rahane. When India lost the first Test match against England, this whisper increased further.
But, this is Kohli’s team and plays with the same vigor and confidence that the captain himself.
Someone once jokingly said that whenever he feels frustrated, he touches Kohli for energy. Kohli has now become the third most successful captain in Test history after Australians Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting.
After the defeat in Chennai, the Indian team kept getting better. At the same time, England’s team moved in the opposite direction. The difference of defeat between the two also increased. The best performance of one team can come with the worst performance of the other team.
32nd hunt in series
Losing the series 3–1 and drawing 2–2 can be attributed to the selection of the team, mis-estimation of length during batting, poor luck, poor umpire’s decision. Or it can be said that the opposition team was very good.
England’s last wicket fell on Ravichandan Ashwin’s ball, which is Ashwin’s 32nd victim in this series. It is possible that England’s team would be taking all these reasons responsible for their defeat.
For this, the pitch can be blamed that it is helpful for the spinners. But twice India’s number eight batsmen have shown how it is played. Ashwin hit a century in Chennai and Washington Sundar was not out for 96 in Ahmedabad.
Bubble policy
England captain Joe Root honestly admitted the reason for the defeat, saying, “His skill was better”.
After the series, India’s head coach also said that he “wants to get out of the bubble”.
This frustration can be understood. Many players from India were in the bubble since the IPL in September. England launched the bubble policy in July. A rotation policy was also required in this. But there are many different rules of bubble in cricket.
In the last Test match when India were playing with 146 for 6 wickets, then England probably felt that the series would be drawn. But then Rishabh Pant played a tremendous innings and reversed the match.
When Washington Sundar played a century partnership for the seventh and eighth wickets, the difference between the two teams was clear. The young Indian players, who were drafted by Rahul Dravid at the National Cricket Academy and shone through the under-19 and A team, were now ready for Test cricket.
Youth team
Opener Shubham Gill is just 21 years old. He scored 91 runs in his first series while chasing runs in Brisbane. Pant is 23 years old, while Washington is 21 years old.
Prithvi Shaw, who has scored a century in his first match, is also just 21 years old and is ready to take a big flight. Apart from this, 20-year-old fast bowler Karthik Tyagi and 19-year-old Yashasvi Jaiswal are also standing in the queue.
India have played the Australia and England series without much use of veterans like Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Muhammad Shami, Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. On the other hand, even players with strong records like KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya did not have to take off.
India’s bench strength was perhaps never so strong. Mohammad Siraj and left-arm spinner Akshar Patel made an impact soon after their debut.
In three Tests, Akshar took 27 wickets at an average of 11 runs. Akshar and Ashwin’s figures are enough to scare any batsman.
This means that despite the relatively less successful senior players like Kohli (172 runs in the series, less than Ashwin’s figures), Cheteshwar Pujara (133) and Ajinkya Rahane (112), the team played with confidence that other players We are able to perform well.
Pressure on England players
It was a completely opposite story from the England team where senior players like Root, Ben Stokes, Anderson were under pressure to perform consistently. There have been some good moments for him like Root’s double century in which England won. Apart from this, he also took 5 wickets for 8 runs.
Flaws of England’s team full of fast bowlers were also exposed. However, Anderson also demonstrated a superb swing bowling, taking the wickets of both Gill and Rahane. For this reason England managed to win six matches in a row in the Indian subcontinent.
With this, the chance of qualifying for the World Test Championship (WTC) final of India was put in danger. Prior to the Australian tour, Kohli had demanded a change in the WTC rules. He called it a “wanderer”.
Shastri also supported this point. Now that India is in the final, Kohli said, “We are not waiting.”
In the 1970s, India considered limited-overs cricket format to be deviating from “real” cricket i.e. Test cricket. India won the World Cup in 1983 and after that the whole world of cricket changed.
Once again, history repeated itself when India described T20 as a joke. Things changed completely after India’s World Cup win in 2007. Only after this did the rise of IPL and this changed the world of cricket once again.
In June, when India will take on New Zealand for the WTC final in England, India will play it more seriously, which was lacking in 1983 or 2007.
If they win, perhaps the International Cricket Council may agree to revisit this format.
Kohli and Shastri have not expressed their opinion about the series of five Test matches to be held in England in August. India had won there in 2007, after which they have suffered a bad defeat in three rounds.
“New India”, as Kohli calls this team, has won the last two series in Australia and will try to improve its record in England.
Hopefully by that time, the team will come out of the bubble and the situation will become normal.
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