A team in Kohli’s image

As the shadows lengthened and the sun set at the House of Cricket on Monday, Virat Kohli’s men had just finished scripting another improbable chapter in the book titled ‘Unbelievable Test Results’. They began the fifth day 154 runs in front with only Rishabh Pant and the tail standing between the hosts and a smallish final day chase. However, this team doesn’t bail out whatever the situation in Tests. Be it 10/2 or 200/2, they play the sport only one way. And that is to play the way their captain would want them to play. Relentless, aggressive, in your face, but most importantly, never ever giving up. The way Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah stood up on the final day is testimony to this. Kohli has not been in the best of form but that aggression is still vivid on the field. If the New Zealand team, marshalled by Kane Williamson, is a team built in his ice-cool image, the Indian team is very much the house the captain has built. It’s hard, uncompromising and going mano a mano.

It’s why some Indians too don’t like his ‘uncomfortable’ aggression. Indian cricketers of the past have opted to stay quiet rather than place metaphorical tanks in front of opposition doors. But Kohli, and his team, aren’t here to win brownie points. Winning Tests matches, especially in an era when victory away from home is one of the hardest things in the sport, is also about winning ego clashes, verbal skirmishes and giving hell to the opposition. One can argue they exposed the soft underbelly of the English team after they targeted James Anderson with some well-directed bumpers on the third evening. That Bumrah was the one leading the charge, a pacer who smiles even when he wants to scowl, is indicative of the type of players Kohli and the think tank have built. The hosts were incensed and intent on retribution and lost their minds. Kohli, the cameras showed, wanted his bowlers and fielders to give hell to the opposition in the 60 overs they had and that’s what he got. Sure, this team may have not got the ICC trophies it craves but, at this moment in time, it has that unmistakable buzz about it. That buzz could yet yield something special; if India wins two of the next three Tests in England, it will win a series in England for the first time since 2007.