It’s early days, yes, still you can tell the difference. Indian text squad under Virat Kohli looks a different pack of wolves altogether. Kohli is yet to travel overseas (Australia, South Africa, New Zeland, England that is) as a captain to play a full-blown test series and the world will be keeping a close eye when it finally happens. However, if the signs emerging from a long home season are anything to go by, we can be rest assured that India under Kohli will do far better than what India under MS Dhoni had been doing over the period of time in test matches.
And it's not just Kohli, even though he is the central narrative of the new paradigm of Indian cricket. In a broader sense, it's about Kohli-Kumble-Thakur trio at the top of the Indian cricket hierarchy, that is making the difference, compare to what we had with Dhoni-Fletcher-Srini trio not too long ago. The latter trio will go down in history as one which had little interest to make India great again in test cricket. MS Dhoni, a brilliant captain in shorter format of the game, showed little interest in test matches and simply kept losing away series one after other. More than losing, the manner of submission was pathetic. He would simply let the game go out of his hand, playing waiting, defensive game, hoping for teams to declare and then doing the patch-up work when it was already too late. 2011 onwards, the string of overseas losses became such a dent on Indian cricket that it maligned the legacy of Dhoni forever and took the sheen out of India’s successes in shorter formats. Duncan Fletcher, with whom Dhoni shared great rapport, did little to inspire team and N. Sriniwasan’s stint as the BCCI boss was of chaos and controversies.
This all seems set to be changed now. Three younger set of people – Captain, Coach, Chief – have shown greater interest in test cricket. They arranged for a long test season comprising 15 test matches with best teams around, something which was unprecedented. They took test matches to the shorter towns and new venues in Indore, Rajkot and Vizag with great success. They agreed on the use of DRS, a great psychological hurdle in India’s acceptance in the world cricket. Now with DRS working and yielding results in India’s favor, there will not be many excuses left for the visiting teams. This also should be remembered that India are playing this home season on some of the very good cricketing pitches, not the hopeless ones, that we had come across in Nagpur before.
Kohli is a keen captain. He is full of intent and he is hungry : for runs and for victories. He plays five bowlers. In his team R. Ashwin bats at 6, means batsmen need to take more responsibility. And he is leading the pack from the front. He has only grown as a batsman after becoming captain and is never seen under pressure. What he will prove to be as a captain was seen during the Australia series down under, when in his very first test match as captain in Adelaide, he scored hundreds in both innings and almost won the game for India. The message was sent across the world that Kohli means business here. Since then he has scored two double-tons in tests and his almost 250 runs in Vizag were the deciding factor between two teams.
India won the World Cup in 2011 for the heroics of MS Dhoni. India was also number one in test matches during that time, but months after the triumph, India meekly gave away the test crown to England. Since then we have never been a good side despite beating Australis 4-0 at home. Under Kohli, this looks to change quickly. We have a long home season, but I can assure you one thing, Kohli must be itching in his socks to play overseas test cricket if only to prove a point and set some records straight. The new test captain of India is a fighter and this gives us hope that he can make India great again in test matches.
