Kohli didn’t play in Nagpur due to a niggle. His last competitive match before that was for Delhi in the Ranji Trophy where he scored six runs before being bowled by Railways pacer Himanshu Sangwan. Before that was another forgettable series in Australia where he kept getting poached outside off-stump. Kohli knew what was wrong with him. So, he got down to mending his issues, one ball at a time. A waft outside off-stump, not too flamboyant but punchy enough. Measured stance and backlift, balanced. If it was on the fifth or sixth stump, Kohli was more than happy letting it go.
These aren’t unprecedented scenes, at least for Kohli. But this is also white-ball cricket, where the chances of Kohli grafting himself to a start before consolidating with risk-free boundaries is higher. The scenario hasn’t changed much despite Shreyas Iyer impressing with his fifty at Nagpur, but Kohli needs a good score to unshackle himself and lend more stability to India’s middle-order batting.
Not that they need it considering how India bounced back from early setbacks. “Somewhere down the line, you are going to lose some wickets, whether it’s openers or middle-order,” said India batting coach Sitanshu Kotak. “But all in all, as a batting unit or as a team, there were a lot of positives. The way we batted, the way we showed our intent. After two wickets, it was literally 9-10 runs an over but we didn’t let them come into the game.”
Kohli’s addition is critical given the fluid nature of the rest of the batting. And since by now Gambhir’s preference for left-right pairs is evident, Kohli becomes an even more vital cog in that line-up comprising Yashasvi Jaiswal, Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja. He is the grounding factor in a batting line-up that is increasingly looking to not adhere to a particular way of batting. What remains to be seen though is how India chooses to bat with Shubman Gill at No.3 and Kohli at No.4.
This being one-dayers, India can still afford two orthodox players at the top. But there has to be clarity of roles so that India don’t stagnate at any stage of the innings. With two matches left in this series, Kohli needs 94 runs to become the third batter to reach 14,000 runs in ODI cricket, after Sachin Tendulkar (18,426) and Kumar Sangakkara (14,234). Having played 283 ODI innings, Kohli can also become the fastest to this milestone, ahead of Tendulkar (350 innings) and Sangakkara (378).
