The snake dance on the Lord’s balcony that made India captain Virat Kohli stand out so strikingly during the second Test ~ everyone else on either side was only playing cricket, which was anything but humdrum ~ was in the tradition of erstwhile leader Sourav Ganguly’s shirt-waving feat at the same place.
That, we were told, had been in retaliation for Andrew Flintoff’s pioneering exhibition of similar skills in Mumbai, with few Indians choosing unequivocally to state that two lapses had never made one universally gold-standard rule for anyone’s social conduct.
Ganguly’s celebratory effusiveness had semaphored success and Kohli might have been anticipating one, given that England hardly ever looked like being in the driving seat. And that, without meaning to take anything away from India’s victory and their 1-0 series lead, was a major reason why you, watching the action on the telly, mightn’t have felt like a million dollars even when India were wiping the floor with their rivals; the conduct of the team was boorish and that of its captain obnoxious.
Well might Kohli’s dance steps have been somewhat different if Stuart Broad, Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes, among others, had been around. His useful contribution with the bat nowithstanding, it has a been long since Kohli hit a Test century, with the latest one dating from the quite farcical pinkball match versus Bangladesh at Eden Gardens in 2019.
Truth to tell, when a ninth-wicket partnership piles up 89 tide-turning runs ~ as India did in the second innings ~ the bowling attack does not really appear as awe-inspiring as it might have been at full strength. The build-up to the series had been hyped to such a level, despite India’s abject capitulation in the World Test Championship final, that the the seriously depleted hosts did not appear worth the waffle.
England’s misfortune is compounded by their batting failure, with skiper Joe Root alone compelling respect. They failed to last 60 overs, when batting these out would have resulted in an another inconclusive ending. The moment Root fell in the second knock, you knew it was all over bar the shouting.
They had three ducks on the scoreboard, and a king pair, and it was a continuation of their feeble efforts through the calendar. The total number of zeroes by England’s Test batsmen this year has shot up to 39, said to be their second-worst tally.
Wickets have often been easy pickings but, honestly, when you reckon also with the fact that the centrepiece of captain Kohli’s bowling strategy has been simply airbrushing Ravichandran Ashwin out of the competitive scene, you are left wondering why the world’s No 1 off-spinner is not in India’s first-choice XI.
He is the one Kohli will go to when the going gets tough on a good wicket. Stalwarts are baffled too, and not everyone is convinced that cricketing reasons alone account for Ashwin being left out. What Is said by way of explanation ~ that India could do with Ravindra Jadeja’s lower-order batting is rigmarole, pure and simple.
If the Indian team management is so worried about the batting at its disposal that bulwarks are needed against this unpretentious English bowling attack, it will find itself bitten back at, sooner or later, home or away.