India looking Sri Lanka, talking South Africa

Chesteshwar Pujara inspects the pitch on the eve of the second Test against Sri Lanka in Nagpur as Rohit Sharma looks on. (Source: AP)

Question: What is it that would infuriate the rival skipper more than intentional time-wasting on the final hour of the last day of an edgy Test match?
Answer: Proudly admitting to it.

Niroshan Dickwella, the combative Sri Lankan wicket-keeper-batsman not only ate up, by his own admission, 2-3 precious overs with his side on the precipice of a defeat, but also unabashedly confided, and justified, his motive and methods.

In times different, or against different oppositions, it could have provoked vastly different responses. A battery of accusations and counteraccusations would have entailed. But Kohli, rather than fuelling the flames, was struck by Dickwella’s “feistiness”. “He is a feisty character and that works for his game. Credit to him for maintaining that and I am sure he will do many good things for Sri Lankan cricket. Even I could have done the same things if I were in a similar situation,” he said. You’d rub your ears or pinch yourselves to ascertain whether it was Kohli who uttered it after all.

It’s also worth hypothesising if a similar incident had occurred earlier this year in the Test against Australia at Ranchi, another thrilling draw where Steve Smith & Co had battled time on a deteriorating surface. Would Kohli have showered such kinds words on his antagonists? Or would he, on the eve of the next Test, speak so graciously of someone who played a crucial role in defying and denying India? Unlikely, given the precedent.

But then, this has been a bizarre series. Surprisingly, there is more talk about India’s overseas Test series next year than the one that’s underway. Bowlers like Rangana Herath and Ravichandran Ashwin have somehow become forgotten spin twins. The names that generally make the loudest sound in press conference room the day before a possibly series-defining Test in the subcontinent are no longer uttered.

Normally, you’d expect the central narrative of a India-Sri Lanka series to be spun around their two leading spinners. Nothing of that sort has prevailed so far in this series. They figure in discussions only because of their batting utility. Would both Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja fit into the eleven in South Africa? Poor Kuldeep Yadav and his chinaman counterpart Lakshan Sandakan, they weren’t even vaguely mentioned. It was starkly different to the preface of India’s tour of Sri Lanka, which the host broadcasters projected as “series between the two best spinners in the world”. Silly such marketing billings might look—irresistibly drawn from the realm of individual sports—but it clearly reflected the influence of the two most prolific spinners in the subcontinent. Not in the sequel though.

Debate around seamers
Instead, the discussions and debates have almost entirely revolved around the seamers, about Mohammed Shami’s hostility or Umesh Yadav’s pace or Ishant Sharma’s comeback prospects, or how good an all-rounder Vijay Shankar is. Heck, even the pitch talks feature not the familiar words like crack, crumble or turn but moisture, swing and grass. The speculations are about how many seamers they would play and not how many spinners (strangely at a venue MS Dhoni has fielded four). So much so that you wonder whether the match is supposedly scheduled somewhere outside the subcontinent. Or as if Kohli and Co have already set one feet in South Africa.

Thus, the thread of almost every conversation can be tied to the South African tour—from the sudden urge to turn dustbowls to green-tops so as to simulate South Africa-like conditions to the fixation with seamers and the necessity to unearth another seam bowling all-rounder. In the past, India would have been more than content if they had one like Hardik Pandya in their ranks. But now Kohli is talking about depth in his seam-all-rounder bench.

Part of the sudden green-tops demand and seamer-obsession, Kohli feels, is due to the crammed schedule. “Unfortunately we get only two days before we fly to South Africa after this series gets over. So we have no choice but be in game situation and think of what’s coming ahead of us. Had we got a month off ideally, we would have done a proper preparation in a camp sort of scenario but we have to sort of make do with what we have,” he reasoned. It does’t help in their acclimatisation that they are playing just a warm-up game before the first Test.

Usually, how much ever dire the situation is, skippers talk down about impending tours, adhering to the we-are-focusing-on-the-present tack. But maybe there’s so much at stake on India’s lengthy overseas spell that begins in South Africa that Kohli can no longer veil his team’s priorities. It’s all too evident.