Kohli is fired-up and sweary but fails to impress as England roar back
Virat Kohli gets fired-up and sweary but fails to impress as England seize control on fourth day at Lord’s… and the box office India captain’s resolve could decide the series
- England seized back control of their India Test on Sunday leaving them 181 for six
- India captain Kohli was caught for just 20 runs and reacted in sweary fury
- The star has not scored an international century in any format since late 2019
- The fate of the series could weigh on Kohli as England target the off-form icon
Virat Kohli couldn’t quite believe it, but then he rarely can. Shortly before lunch on the fourth day, as India tried to repair the damage caused by the cheap loss of their in-form openers, he fended at Sam Curran and was caught behind for 20. For a moment, time stood still. But then, with Kohli, it always does.
Bowlers have spent the majority of his 13-year international career doing his bidding, so it generally comes as a surprise — not least to Kohli himself — when one of them gets him out.
This is even more the case when he has already avoided the obvious pitfalls. His first ball from Jimmy Anderson brought an easy push to the cover fence. Soon after, he whipped Ollie Robinson off his pads. An early riposte, then, to the two bowlers who had previously dismissed him in the series.
Virat Kohli was disappointed as he was caught for just 20 runs in England on the fourth day
All the while, he was engaged in a verbal duel with Anderson, whom he accused of ‘swearing at me again’. To a bowler with 110 Test wickets at this ground alone, Kohli followed up with: ‘This isn’t your ****ing backyard.’
Had Anderson fired up his old adversary? Would England regret the contretemps?
What was clear was that Curran’s left-arm angle had got Kohli thinking. A ball that pitched on the stumps, then straightened, hit his pads and persuaded England to ask for a review. The technology had it going over the top, but a seed was sown.
Next over, Curran went the other way, running one across India’s captain and back down the slope.
Kohli edged Sam Curran to Jos Buttler, who caught the England captain for a key scalp
Perhaps conscious of the need to protect his wicket after the leg-before appeal, Kohli played at one he might have left, and edged to Jos Buttler, sending Curran wheeling away in delight towards square leg. India were 55 for three, just 28 ahead, and Kohli was fuming.
Moments later, the cameras picked him up tossing something across India’s dressing room in disgust. And a few hours after that, he was waving his arms around on the balcony because of bad light, directing proceedings like an Italian traffic cop. Even in the sanctuary of the Lord’s pavilion, he is box office.
Kohli’s scores in this series are nought, 42 and 20 — hardly a disaster, but not exactly Joe Root, either. And what will irk him even more than his modest haul is the manner of his dismissals, each one the product of a fatal dab outside off stump.
On Thursday evening, not long after he had poked Robinson to Root at first slip, the bowler was happy enough to explain England’s plans against India’s princeling: ‘A fourth or fifth-stump line, back of a length.’
Kohli was feuding with Jimmy Anderson throught the day’s play, back at his box office best
He quickly added: ‘Luckily, it worked.’ Luck, of course, is only part of it. When India toured this country in 2014, Kohli was so vulnerable outside off, especially against Anderson, that he averaged 13. Four years later, he stood further outside his crease to counter the swing, and more square on. Anderson didn’t take his wicket once. It was no coincidence that Kohli averaged 59.
The temptation ahead of this tour was to depict him as a man on a mission. He now knew how to bat in England, which meant the focus switched to India’s attempts to win their first series in this country since 2007.
Then came his first-baller to Anderson at Trent Bridge — and suddenly we were back in 2014. It is a narrative England hope to revisit on a regular basis as this series unfolds.
The disorientating effects of the Covid pandemic mean that any talk of a slump comes with a huge asterisk. But Kohli is now without an international century in any format since November 2019.
Kohli was orchestrating from the sidelines as his team desperately tried to limit the damage
And if it is also true that his 49 innings in that time have yielded 17 half-centuries and an average of 41, then it is a sequence that, in Kohli-land at least, qualifies as a drought.
The afternoon session provided another gripping narrative, as Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, two Indian veterans who have struggled for runs of late, blocked their way from lunch until tea and beyond.
Not until 5.20pm were they parted, as Mark Wood got the old ball to rear at Pujara, ending his 206-ball vigil on 45.
The contrast with Kohli’s high-octane energy was a subplot in itself, and one that the captain may do well to bear in mind. England are content to pick away at an old scab, and it will be up to India’s captain to ignore them. The fate of the series may depend on his resolve.
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