‘Virat Kohli is India’s most popular sportsperson’ – this is a statement that could win the International Stating the Obvious Competition by a long distance. A man who is known for his fierce pride in cricket, his passion and most importantly, a bull-headed stubbornness to not give up, Virat Kohli has come up by leaps and bounds over the last half a decade. As expected, captaincy followed his success and stardom and despite an early, heart-wrenching loss in Australia, he has one of the most impressive captaincy records in the last few years.
The start to Virat’s captaincy career was a little shaky, as India lost two and played out draws in two more of the first four Tests. In both those losses, India had a sniff at victory. Kohli’s career as India’s skipper has taken off since then. He won a series in Sri Lanka, India bouncing back to win 2-1, and won in West Indies 2-0 and is currently on an unbeaten streak of 16 matches, which puts him in third place, in terms of longest unbeaten streaks by an Indian Test captain.
Kohli has won 12 Tests, lost 2 and drawn 6 in 20 matches as captain and is known for his aggression and flamboyance. Kohli isn’t in the Dhoni or Dravid mould of captaincy. He is more in the Ganguly mode of captaincy, wearing his heart on his sleeves and playing excited and excitable cricket. While some of his inspired moves in the recent India-England Test series were praised, especially the way Kohli handled his bowlers and went for some aggressive field placements when India were on top, commentators also criticised him for inevitable rookie mistakes that allowed the game to drift away from India’s grasp.
In the long run, he will learn from these errors in judgment, and he has to feel fortunate most of his mistakes didn’t result in losses. That could be scarring and scary. But, Kohli will need to do a better job when he is on away tours where the smallest tactical mistake can make the difference between winning and losing. Here are five examples of captaincy from the India-England series which surprised cricket pundits in a negative way.
Disclaimer: Mind you, these are early days in his captaincy, and he has someone of Anil Kumble’s calibre speaking over his shoulder, which means he’ll only get better with time.
#1 Staggered slips
This is in vogue in modern day Test cricket, and Kohli employs them too. Kohli gives the impression of someone ever ready to go for the kill. But many a time, in the recent series, with a ball swinging and with his pacers, Umesh Yadav and Mohammad Shami creating chances, he didn’t quite go for the jugular.
In many cases, Kohli went for the unconventional slips, the second slip without a first slip. Firstly, there is no logical sense behind avoiding the first slip and keeping the second slip in Tests where batsmen are more likely to get a fine edge than slash hard and get an edge to second slip.
Secondly, Indian wicket-keepers don’t dive athletically a la Quinton de Kock or Matthew Wade. India’s slip cordon, barring Ajinkya Rahane, isn’t the safest in the world. That means touch chances between the keeper and the second slip are as good as gone. The psychological impact on the bowler of such a chance gone waste is much deeper too!
#2 Long on-Long off-Deep Point-Deep midwicket
Modern day captains go for in-out fields in Test cricket, and Kohli who is an attacking captain seemed likely that he would deviate from this pattern. However, almost anomalously, he is also currently following the same trend.
The biggest surprise was when he let a terribly out-of-form Ben Duckett get away from the strike in the second Test, despite the batsman being a walking wicket for spinners, by giving him a long-on. This prompted Nasser Hussain on air to wonder if he is switched on during those moments.
Kohli saw the benefits of keeping the field up when a well-set Joe Root played a rash shot and gifted his wicket to Ravichandran Ashwin in the second Test in Vizag, the moment long off was brought up.
Nevertheless, Kohli prefers fielders in the deep. However, inexplicably, even in Mohali, where England were in a spot of bother in their second innings losing quick wickets after starting with a deficit of 134 runs, Kohli went for fielders in the deep.
In fact, the massive partnership between Moeen Ali and Joe Root in the first Test at Rajkot was largely because Kohli offered too many easy singles very early in their innings, despite India picking up quick wickets and putting England under pressure.
Kohli particularly likes a deep point which is necessary when spinners often drop it short. None of India’s three spinners – Ashwin, Jayant Yadav and Jadeja – looked like they lacked control in the second and third Tests.
In such a scenario, a deep point only offers the batsmen an easy single off a good ball, leaking the pressure and preventing the bowler from bowling six balls to the same batsman. Sometimes, that boundary is worth giving away, if it lets a bowler attack just the one batsman.
#3 Absence of a gully and forward short leg
So many edges have gone through the gully for a spinner this series that placing it right from the start is almost a no-brainer. Kohli, almost unbelievably, prefers fielders in the deep to a gully.
Like Dhoni, he has been a ball-chaser, setting a gully only after a couple of chances have gone begging. What is more striking is the fact that Kohli doesn’t go for a Gully even when he really doesn’t need to care for runs and India has a lead.
In situations, where one can gamble and give away a few runs to purchase a wicket or two, Kohli shies away from the risk. That is hard to explain especially on Indian tracks, against England, where chances of getting a catch in gully are almost a given.
Even Joe Root, the most reliable of all England batsmen on display, was surprised by a couple of balls that suddenly jumped at him, edging them through gully. However, he breathed a sigh of relief on both occasions that no man was catching there.
Similarly, the forward short leg is an important position as much for pouching catches as it is for pressurising the batsman, something Sunil Gavaskar on air never really stops elaborating on.
Kohli rarely goes for the forward short leg, even when the batsman is constantly inside-edging the ball on to their pads with the ball lobbing up in front of them.
#4 Following the ball
Known weaknesses like Hameed’s against off-spinner coming around the wicket, Jos Buttler’s against left-arm spinners and Moeen Ali’s against short-pitched bowling weren’t exploited by Kohli so far. Kohli doesn’t straightaway go for fielding positions like forward short leg and square leg for fast, aggressive bowling.
He often chases the ball. It takes him two or three missed chances before he gets in certain fielding positions and doesn’t try variations like short cover or gully (for pace and spin) straightaway.
If a boundary has been hit towards point or towards mid-off, Kohli doesn’t let that go as a one-off. Instead, he immediately tries plugging those gaps. While it is understood that the modern skipper hates conceding runs, immediate field changes often give the batsman confidence.
Buttler got rid of three close-in fielders with just a couple of aggressive shots on the fourth day morning. Kohli’s reactionary captaincy gives away too much to the opponents, something he must avoid because stubbornly sticking to your plan despite your opponent’s efforts at putting you off, is sometimes as important as being flexible when your plan is not working.
#5 Not enticing risks from batsmen
Misbah-ul-Haq almost always leaves the mid-wicket open for Yasir Shah to entice batsmen to play against the latter’s leg-spin. Graeme Swann would often bowl without cover, to draw the batsman into driving. Kohli needs to learn, that sometimes, you need to take risks for rewards. Kohli relies on his bowlers giving him a breakthrough, through sheer discipline.
He hasn’t come across as someone who hatches elaborate plans and lets the bowlers make the batsmen commit mistakes. Yes, he has some superb bowlers like Shami, who bounced Moeen Ali out in the first innings of the third Test, Jadeja who enticed Stokes to step out and then got him stumped and Ashwin who used his drift and turn to clean up many an English batsman.
However, Kohli needs to encourage batsmen to take risks and for that to happen, he has to learn not to plug every gap in the field. At the moment, he seems insecure despite not really being under scoreboard pressure and playing in home conditions. One only wonders how he will react, when under the pump, playing away from home!
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