Three slips, no cover and a point to ponder for Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli imitating Pujara’s attempt during the slip-catching drill. (Source: Express Photo by Praveen Khanna)

Just outside the Kotla nets, under the thickly-foliaged open space, Ravindra Jadeja offered Virat Kohli a valuable batting tip: “Bat thoda ooncha rakhna, itna neeche nahi.” The Indian skipper was desperately trying to manufacture edges to his slip cordon, but such has been his touch that he was middling even those he was intending to mishit. Kohli took a more upright stance, the bat almost on level with his shoulder. But as the full-toss approached his body, the instinct kicked in. He arched away from the ball’s dipping trajectory, got right underneath it and perfectly ramped it over a leaping Cheteshwar Pujara at first slip. He then began mimicking Pujara’s rather inelastic leap. The entire cordon, which also comprised Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul, burst into peels of laughter.

But no matter what Kohli tried, he couldn’t coerce an edge. Jadeja had a more radical solution this time,”Stump leke bat karo.” Kohli retorted playfully: “Aaja bapu, tu hi bat kar le, stump ki zaroorat nahin padega, bat se bhi edge maarega.” Cue, laughter. So loud that a few passers-by scattered around them. “Tu aaja, fourth slip mein,” Kohli yelped at Rohit Sharma, who promptly winkled away from his vicinity, and feigned he was busy unwrapping his pads.

The apparent frivolity seemed all but a veneer. Something graver might be festering inside Kohli. For, slip-catching, and who comprises the slip cordon, has been gnawing at him for a while. It’s not made easier by the reluctance of Murali Vijay, easily his most trusted first-slip. This has resulted in the captain forced to realign, and often fiddle around, with his slip cordon.

Hence, since the trip to Sri Lanka, it’s been a merry-go-round of slipsmen for the seamers — Kohli needn’t worry for spinners, for Ajinkya Rahane has nailed it a long time ago. All but Wriddhiman Saha and the pace bowlers have dabbled with varying degrees of success. Pujara (though not blessed with the qucikest of reflexes), Dhawan (despite his tendency to go hard at the catches) and Rahul have seemed the most comfortable of them, but Dhawan has been in and out of the side. Rahul too is not an absolute certainty, in case the team management is looking at a left-right combination in South Africa. And both Dhawan and Rahul featuring in the same eleven looks less likely.

History of drops
The least comfortable were the skipper and Jadeja, paradoxically two of the most athletic fielders in the team. The latter had (in) famously grassed Alastair Cook on 15 in Southampton. The scratchy Cook then scratched his way to a series-altering 95. Kohli’s drop-list at slips includes Tharanga, Cook, Lyon, Warner (twice), Guptill, Michael Clarke, Ed Cowan (twice) and Steve Smith. Fortunately, though, none of them cost India dear in the context of the respective games. But that’s hardly any consolation, for there’s the precendent of him flooring Brendon McCullum on 9 at Wellington at silly mid-on, and the latter amassing a match-saving triple.

However, with a string of home series, the particular fallibility memoed only sporadically. But on bouncier, pacier surfaces, where pacemen are supposed to shoulder a bulk of the toil, the vulnerability could turn out to be expensive. Hence, the re-introduction of Pujara at slips, not a role unaccustomed to him but something from which he had shirked away post the knee and hamstring injuries. He demonstrated that he doesn’t require much dusting up of his old skill with a neat, low catch, lunging to his left, of Sadeera Samarawickrama’s edge at first slip in Nagpur.

It was a difficult catch not only because it was dipping, but also because it came off a wild drive outside the off-stump. It’s easier anticipating a catch at the slip off a defensive than an attacking shot. Also, the edge flew at a decent pace, not towards him but to the ground. It goes without saying that Pujara occupied the spot more than anyone else.

More importantly, Pujara is feeling comfortable—there’s nothing as detrimental to the team’s cause than thrusting the slip duties to someone reluctant out of necessity. “Slip fielding is something I’ve done in the past even for Saurashtra. I enjoy fielding at slips, so going forward, if I’m fielding at first slip I’ll definitely enjoy and try and take many catches. Whether I would stand overseas is a call that the management would take,” he says. But slip fielding, he would know, will be a different proposition in South Africa, as most of the edges fly faster and higher towards them, like Kohli’s upper cut that bulleted over Pujara’s stretched palms.

Testing times
He, though, hints at a floating cordon. “All the batsmen should be ready to field in the slips, where we’ll have at least three slips and a gully throughout the day. So we are trying to have all the batsmen who can field at the slips whenever needed,” he observes.

But it won’t be like Kohli chopping and changing his men after every over. There, definitely, will be a core group, prowling beside the keeper more often than most. Ideally, it could be Pujara (first slip), Dhawan (second) and Rahul (third) with Kohli or Rahane at gully. But it’s likely that only of Dhawan and Rahul will play together, which implies Kohli has to depute someone else, depending on who’s not playing.

Or was it a larger hint that Dhawan and Rahul are likely to rejoin as openers for the Kotla Test? As is often the case, more like a cricketing truism (read well-disguised speculation), the slip cordon suggests the team-combo. But it’s not definitive—might be a case of one of Dhawan and Rahul merely filling up the cordon too. Nonetheless, in one frame, it reflects the peculiar riches and deficiencies of this team: three openers vying for one spot but just a settled slips-man. And to sharpen their reflexes, Kohli’s bat needs to somehow find that elusive edge in practice more often, or Jadeja needs to come up with snappier batting tips.