“The King is back in his territory”, but he has to start from scratch. That’s how former Australia opener Matthew Hayden summed it up for Virat Kohli, for whom, Australia has been a happy hunting ground.
Six centuries and an average of 54.08 certainly underpin Kohli’s dominance in Tests in Australia. But in the ongoing tour Down Under, the former India captain goes into Friday’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy opener in Perth with only two half-centuries over the past 12 months at an average of 28 — obviously low by his standards.
On the 2014-15 tour to Australia too, Kohli had taken the field after an extremely disappointing campaign in England, where he aggregated only 134 in 10 innings. But it was that Australia tour thereafter, which marked the rise of ‘King Kohli’.
Will Kohli be able to regain his touch this time around? “Boss Kohli cannot be written off,” Hayden insisted, adding that the going won’t be too easy either for him against the Australian bowling attack.
“Are Virat’s stocks rising or are they falling? That’s the question. And only Virat will be able to answer that because naturally, there’s got to be that hunger, which Virat always brings to any kind of contest.
“But as every athlete will say, as life gets more complicated and more layers come to it, there’s always this great challenge and tension between now and the future, because the past actually means nothing at the start of a new series. And unfortunately, he can’t carry his immense performances from any season into this one, because it’s a different one. It’s a new one.
“He starts with his average of zero and aggregate of zero,” Hayden, one of the
leading openers of his time and currently a Channel 7 cricket commentator, told select media in a virtual interaction facilitated by the channel on Wednesday.
Not just in the last few years, but right through his career, the line on the off-stump channel or outside off has been a perennial problem for Kohli. Should the Australian pace attack continue to bowl this line against Kohli in the coming Tests?
In response to this query from The Telegraph, Hayden, who averaged 50.73 from 103 Test appearances, explained: “Look, there isn’t a batter that wouldn’t be worried about great line-and-length bowling in Australian conditions.
“I sat into a thousand bowlers’ meetings over my career and they all said two things: focus on the top of off-stump or outside off-stump for certain players like Virat Kohli. A fifth-stump line if you like, and follow up with a good bouncer. And then the rest is up to the skill sets of these bowlers.
“But that’s the one thing these bowlers do and Virat will know consistently well that they deliver outstanding results. Especially in this first Test in Perth, when you look at the leading wicket-takers across the four Tests that have been played there — (Nathan) Lyon, (Mitchell) Starc, (Pat) Cummins, (Josh) Hazelwood — they’ve all got averages below 25.
“So, they’re a world-class bowling attack and that’s why, this is dubbed as one of the fantastic opportunities for a great player like Virat to have that gauntlet thrown at them and then not only to survive, but thrive. And that’s what
he has done in these conditions in the past.”
‘Learn from Sachin’
Sachin Tendulkar’s unforgettable 241 not out in the New Year’s Test in Sydney two decades ago is etched in Indian cricketing folklore, particularly for the icon’s immense control in avoiding the cover drive that had been troubling him that series.
Hayden, who had featured in that game, wants that 613-minute long marathon innings of Sachin to be a source of inspiration for the Indian batsmen in these five Tests.
“We go berserk on players that have all the style and charisma. But the most successful run-getters in this country tend to be those that bat a
long time. And to remind everyone, the most successful batsman here has been
Sachin Tendulkar.
“My favourite innings of Sachin was the Sydney Test, where he just refused to play a cover drive for almost two days to get 200 runs. That’s the sort of character required to get runs in this country. Not someone that bats 30 balls, makes a glorious 52 but doesn’t make any impact on the game because he’s in the dressing room sipping soy lattes,” Hayden emphasised.
