India vs West Indies: Virat Kohli re-ignites fire of old as new-age India hold nerve to deny Windies

How long has it been? As concerns Indian cricket fans, this question has but one answer: two long years, and then some, as the wait for Virat Kohli’s next international hundred goes on.

Every time he walks to the crease, Kohli fans come out in unison, in hope and prayer. Maybe not so much excitement these days because he has been a shadow of the batter we know so well for a long time now. They count the overs, the runs needed, the equation – are there enough deliveries left to score a salvaging, confidence-infusing hundred?

You see, even the mega batters, superstars of the game, Kohli’s ilk if you will, have their demons. When the runs aren’t flowing, the bat isn’t coming down at optimal speed, the feet aren’t moving well enough, the ball isn’t going in the direction you hit it, or not as far enough as the power applied, doubts start creeping in. About desire and motivation, as every Tom, Dick and Harry with a Twitter account start questioning you.

Virat Kohli returned to form with a well-made fifty against West Indies in second T20I. AP

For Kohli, these doubts have been circling for a long while now. The question marks have been raised for almost a similar duration, with their intensity growing in the last six months or so. The captaincy drama has also probably meant he doesn’t have the requisite support system around him. Long story short, all of it impacts the manner in which he bats, or scores run, the few that he does score nowadays.

Consider the first T20 at Kolkata. He started in an odd manner. Two fours, 8 off 4, and then holed out – a very unlike-Kohli innings. You see, in T20 cricket, he starts a little slow, stealing singles and doubles, with the odd boundary in between, creeping up to 30-odd off 20 deliveries, then anchors in during the middle overs before powering through to the end of his innings.

This, like during the ODI series, was a Kohli trying to muscle his way out of poor form. 17 off 12, including a boundary off the seventh ball he faced – this was textbook T20 batting style. Then, he launched it aerially on the 13th, landing straight into the fielder’s hands at deep extra cover. Off an in-form Kohli’s bat, that would have probably sailed over the rope for a stunning six.

The underlying point isn’t about the runs, or even his dismissal. It is a little bit about his shot selection, odd for that point in his innings. Rather, it is mostly about his mindset. This was Kohli like we have never seen him before – trying to fight the good fight in every manner possible, trying to swim through a poor patch of form, but pulled down again. What more could he do?

The common consensus is he needs a break. But champions don’t bow to popular opinion. Maybe the break will come soon, before his 100th Test. But he wouldn’t want to go away – even for a short time – leaving things the way they are. Kohli bats, and fights, on his own terms. That much has been pretty clear since the day he stepped into the limelight.

And so, as Ishan Kishan was dismissed on Friday night, Kohli strode onto the Eden Gardens. Scratch that – he bolted, reaching the crease even before Kishan could get off the turf. There was this dogged determination to create some momentum for himself, provide an energetic mindset he could feed off, and for once, get going.

He did – three punched boundaries, a play-and-miss, but he was still there. The start was on, now it was about borrowing from the earlier playbook. Singles and fours in equal measure – this was Kohli like we hadn’t seen for some time. 27 off 15, including six fours – Naah, this was Kohli flowing like we hadn’t seen for a long time.

Post the powerplay he only had two scoring boundaries. 10 more runs, and the remainder 15 came from running between the wickets. With Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav gone as well, this was Kohli anchoring the innings before a final punch. In between, there was that half-century. A smile of relief, more than anything else, and fans for once were overjoyed. It wasn’t quite the three-figure mark they had hoped for, but for the moment, that half-century hit its mark just fine.

Perhaps it was the mini-boost from the small crowd allowed into the Eden Gardens. After all, there is no other cricketer who feeds on this energy as Kohli. Perhaps it was a reinvention of himself, putting aside the accumulator at the start and going aggressive. Perhaps the shortest format will help him in this endeavour. The runs will come again, they always do. The question is the manner in which they will come through. This is the juncture Kohli finds himself at, today.

Team India, as a whole, isn’t in too dissimilar a space either. Rohit Sharma’s return from injury has given a new direction and purpose, even if only against the West Indies in a white-ball series on home turf. There is certain calm in his animated leadership while setting the field, and a definitive direction in which the batting order goes about its business.

Certain chinks still need to be ironed out, and it could be in the amalgamation of the ‘old with the new’. If Ravi Bishnoi’s rise was the standout marker in the first T20, Rishabh Pant, Venkatesh Iyer and Harshal Patel rose to the occasion in the second game.

Pant is an anomaly at the moment. Whether it is ODI or T20 cricket, the team management perhaps doesn’t know his perfect role just yet. All they know is he can be a very useful, aggressive tool, and until they unlock his potential, this experimentation with his batting spot will continue. At least they have zeroed in on two spots – four and five – so there is some similarity in roles.

The coming of Iyer is more to the point. Giving him two T20s in succession means there is a belief he could perform the ‘all-rounder option’ role. He may or may not bowl, depending on situations, but he must bat at number six and finish games. In that, the message is loud and clear, irrespective of how Kolkata Knight Riders handle this rare talent.

Then, there is Harshal Patel. Rovman Powell was intent on hitting everything into the Bay of Bengal, and it took a courageous man to deliver those final six deliveries. Harshal Patel’s biggest plus-point being he doesn’t waver under pressure, or when the batter is on top of him. Powell smashed those two sixes, and it was a fine time to buckle down. Remember Ben Stokes at the same ground? Harshal Patel, though, has been moulded in the fires of the Indian Premier League. The result is for all to see.

In summation then, with another T20 series wrapped up, the Men in Blue need Kohli’s experience, and Rohit’s guidance to move forward. And they also need the chutzpah of the younger ones coming through. They need Pant’s aggression, Iyer’s smooth demeanour (in the different roles he has performed) and Bishnoi’s eagerness.

Most of all, they need Harshal Patels’ calm to mix with the vigour of Jasprit Bumrah’s bowling (when he returns), to conjure this T20 side into a finished product ahead of the 2022 World Cup.

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