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Virat Kohli’s 10th consecutive home test win erased any lingering doubts about his role as captain of India.
In Australia, his deputy Ajinkya Rahane drew one test and won two after Kohli returned home for the birth of his child, which led to speculation.
When India lost the first Test to England, the whispers grew louder.
But this is Kohli’s team, make no mistake about it, playing with the kind of passion and self-confidence that the captain himself has tons of.
Someone once confessed, partly only as a joke, that when he felt bad all he had to do was touch Kohli for an energy transfer. Kohli is now the third most successful captain in testing history behind Australians Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting.
After that defeat in Chennai, India got better and better as England traveled in the opposite direction, their margins of defeat widening. One team’s highs have dramatically coincided with the other’s lows.
The difference between a 3-1 streak loss and a 2-2 draw can depend on team selection, poor judgment of batting length, spate of blood, bad luck, d ‘a disappointing call from the referee. Or the opposition may be clearly greater.
When England’s last wicket fell to give Ravichandran Ashwin their 32nd wicket in the series, England could highlight all of the above.
It is convenient to indicate the turns, but twice the eighth Indian batsman has shown how it can be done.
Ashwin made a century in Chennai and Washington Sundar 96 steps in Ahmedabad.
“We were outdone,” said English skipper Joe Root with admirable honesty.
One of the first things India head coach Ravi Shastri said after the series was “we want to get out of the bubble”.
The frustration was obvious. Many Indian players were in a bubble since IPL in September
England had inaugurated “bubble” tests in July. A rotation policy is essential. Perhaps, too, bubble cricket calls for a different set of statistical measures.
When India was 146-6 in the final test, England might have had visions of a drawn series. Then Rishabh Pant played the rounds of the series including the decade shot while sweeping James Anderson, new ball and all.
When Washington anchored the Partnerships of the Century for the Seventh and Eighth Wickets, the difference between the teams was on display to the public.
Young people from India, first spotted by Rahul Dravid at the National Cricket Academy, and polished through the Under-19 and “A” tours, were ready for the cricket test.
Opener Shubman Gill is 21; he made 91 in the successful chase from India to Brisbane in his first heat. The pants are 23, Washington 21.
Only 21-year-old Prithvi Shaw is waiting behind the scenes, having already debuted for a century, Prithvi Shaw, who is still only 21 years old. Waiting for their turn are fast bowler Kartik Tyagi, 20, and batsman Yashasvi Jaiswal, 19.
India played much of their cricket against Australia and England without frontlins Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Mohammad Shami, Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, while players with good records like KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya did not have a look. The strength of the bench has never been stronger.
When Mohammed Siraj and left-arm spinner Axar Patel made their debut, they made an immediate impact.
Axar’s 27 wickets under 11 came in just three tests. In the drummers’ nightmares, the figures of Ashwin and Axar will occupy an important place.
This meant that despite the relative failures of Seniors Kohli (172 races in the series, less than Ashwin’s tally), Cheteshwar Pujara (133) and Ajinkya Rahane (112), the team played with the confidence that someone would deliver.
It was in contrast to England for whom the seniors Root, Ben Stokes, Anderson had to deliver day after day.
They had their moments – Root scoring a double century in England’s victory and later claiming 5-8 with his occasional breaks to highlight the insanity of selecting a squad filled with average boosters.
Anderson sent perhaps the most beautiful game of swing bowling ever to India in the opener, put Gill and Rahane in the same thing, the ball traveling poorly through the bat and pad like a child entering a circus through a slit in the tent.
This led to England’s sixth consecutive victory in the subcontinent and momentarily eroded India’s chances of qualifying for the World Test Championship (WTC) final.
Interestingly, Kohli had called the change in WTC rules (caused by the Covid-19 pandemic) ahead of the tour of Australia as “puzzling”.
Then he called it a “distraction,” which Shastri echoed. Now that India is in the final, “we can’t wait,” Kohli says.
It’s an interesting streak and reflects India’s reaction to two other World Cups – the 50 over and the T20.
For much of the 1970s, India looked down upon the shorter format, seeing it as a mere distraction from the “real” cricket, which was Test cricket. Then they won in 1983 and the world changed.
History repeated itself with T20 which India scorned and considered a joke. After winning this World Cup in 2007, things are never the same again. On the one hand, it led to IPL and changed the face of cricket.
In June, when they face New Zealand in the WTC final in England, India will approach them with a serious missing in 83 or 07. They would have liked a three-game final, and if they won, it could. convince the International Cricket Council to take a fresh look at the format.
Although neither Kohli nor Shastri used the phrase, the series of five tests in England in August could be considered India’s “last frontier”.
India last won there in 2007 and since then have had three miserable tours.
“New India” – a term Kohli likes to use – have won the last two series in Australia and will look to change their lopsided record in England.
Teams could be out of the bio-secure bubble by then, bringing a touch of normalcy to the show.
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