Is Virat Kohli really aggressive?

Virat Kohli’s ‘aggressive’ attitude has reaped a first Test series win, but how aggressive is he really?

That a free-flowing Chris Gayle or an elegant Rohit Sharma or even a menacing Shikhar Dhawan can take every bowler in the world to the cleaners is something that the world has witnessed time and again. The world hails them as ‘aggressive’ batsmen! While an Australian team is termed historically aggressive given their way of intimidating opponents with their words.

Even an Ishant Sharma when he starts sledging the batsmen and gives him glaring looks, is praised by his captain for his aggressive outlook on the game. Is this what aggression means or can aggression manifest itself in different forms?

When AB de Villiers displayed dogged resistance against Australia in one of the slowest innings ever played, was it not his aggression on display? He went on and on consuming balls at will to bail his team out of a deep hole and secured them a draw, which was their best possible result. Had AB De Villiers displayed no restraint, the Proteas would have been humiliated.

This show put up by De Villiers was a rare occasion in modern day cricket when a batsman was willing to grind it out by playing a boorish brand of cricket. This art of weathering the storm through survival instincts is fast becoming extinct and its value it seems is being constantly undermined by the so-called ‘aggressive’ captains.

Agression a state of mind

While Australia were bowled out in double digits against their rivals in the Ashes, India too would have faced such humiliation had it not been for one man – Cheteshwar Pujara. The Aussies approached their innings with a reckless attitude trying to punish even good balls, which cost them dear. Virat too has taken a leaf out of Clarke’s books when it comes to encouraging aggressive and attacking stroke play.

While the approach in itself is welcome, what is not encouraging is that it is coming at the cost of some good defensive and patient old school type of batting.

The younger captains coming through in this era of T20s tend to forget the value of someone who can play the waiting game. At the end of the day, it was that very quality that helped Virat create history in the Lankan Islands. When the situation required fire fighting, not one batsman barring Pujara could put his head down and fight it out.

Was this not aggression? It was just that defence was the best form of aggression considering the playing conditions. What stood out between Pujara and the rest was the ability to remain unruffled after getting beaten by a very good ball and put the previous delivery out of his head when he faced up to the next ball.

Cricket is a game that is played as much in the minds as it is on the field, and that is a fact that the young captains should realize sooner than later to get Test cricket back to the zenith where it deserves to be. It is only very apt that one of the most feared batsman, Mathew Hayden, once famously said, “All this going around is not aggression, look at Rahul Dravid’s eyes to know what aggression is”. Aggression, at the end of the day is a state of the mind!