Australia v India second Test: Virat Kohli still a conviction player as match builds to a climax too close to call

Virat Kohli has been the soul of geniality this Test series, a contrast to the angry young cricket captain of six years ago. But the old Kohli lurks.

Virat Kohli of India has words with the umpires at the end of day two, Saturday, of the Second Test match in the series between India and Australia at Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

During this Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Virat Kohli has been the soul of geniality, a contrast to the angry young captain of six years ago. On Saturday, same again, ever ready with a wry aside for Steve Smith, a smiling yarn with Usman Khawaja on the way in at lunch, a conspiratorial smirk with Nathan Lyon when a ball stayed low.

But the 50th over of India’s innings, with his score having built steadily to 44, confirmed that the old Kohli lurks. As Nitin Menon raised his finger in answer to Matthew Kuhnemann’s lbw appeal, Kohli was not standing for that. He reviewed insistently; he sought confirmation from his partner that the ball was heading down leg; he loitered proprietorially in the middle of the pitch as the reviews rolled.

Virat Kohli laughs during day two. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

The famous story of Kohli’s youth is that the morning after his father died, he consulted his coach and resumed a Ranji Trophy innings on 40 not out, ending up on 90. When the coach checked back with him in the afternoon, Kohli complained: ‘‘Sir, I was given out wrongly when I was just ten short of a century …’’

From the other perspective, of course, a different narrative. Kuhnemann always knew he was coming to India, when family duties impinged on his state teammate Mitchell Swepson. But he could hardly have foreseen promotion from the status of Australia’s number five spinner to opening the bowling in a Test at Delhi, or opening his Test wicket tally with one of the game’s finest players.

My narrative? It looked out to the naked eye — an assuredly Australian eye, but one that’s always been happy to watch Kohli all day. Had Kohli felt an inside edge, he would surely not have worried about which way the ball was headed. And Menon is an ‘‘outer’’, having given a tighter lbw against Matthew Renshaw in Nagpur.

Kohli was not convinced; Kohli will never be convinced; it is part of his boundless confidence. That he was later glimpsed, eyes flashing, conviction burning, examining the replay with his team’s analysts was 100 per cent Virat.

This Test, meanwhile, is building to a climax too close to call. The morning session had already been as hectic as cricket gets in these parts. On the ground where he took his second-best Test figures a decade ago, Lyon spun out four for 6 in 26 deliveries, each loaded with menace, edged with the possibility of variable bounce. Australia also burned three reviews, like they were marks in Weimar Germany.

Cheteshwar Pujara was skittishly lbw, to remind us that David Warner is not the only mid-30s, 100-Test veteran refusing to go gentle into that good night: his average since the start of 2021 is 31, compared to Warner’s 29, and there are many more young batters queuing behind the Indian than the Australian.

Danger lurked in both directions. KL Rahul perished playing forward, Rohit Sharma playing back. Shreyas Iyer flicked, and the ball emerged from Peter Handscomb’s bread basket to lodge in one meaty paw — the first catch at bat-pad in this series, in which the straight ball has been a bigger threat than the big ragger. Iyer got his own back later.

The stage was perfectly set for Kohli: a home crowd, a thrown-together attack, a recent run of outs to set right. His batting has been collateral damage of India’s infatuation with rank turners, and there is a sense that he now struggles to rouse himself for anything other than the big occasion. Today he was in deadly earnest, totally committed, his strike points against spin bunched back and forward — no half-measures.

Matthew Kuhnemann (second left) after taking the wicket of India's Virat Kohli during the second day. Picture: Money Sharma/AFP

Peter Roebuck once observed that you could tell that his Somerset teammate Viv Richards was serious when he deigned to take singles; 20 of Kohli’s first 30 runs accumulated here one-by-one, to his home crowd’s unending enchantment. Not canned applause, by the way, but genuine jubilation, swelling to carnival when Kohli finally came down the pitch to slap Todd Murphy over his head, dwindling to silence as Kohli walked off soon after.

Still, as Australia discovered in Nagpur, this is a deucedly difficult Indian batting order to rule a line under, with a number 9 in Ravichandran Ashwin, who has five Test centuries and 5000 first-class runs, and in Axar Patel an exceptional timer of the ball, with a simple method and a watertight defence.

As at Nagpur, too, chances went begging. On 28, Axar’s edge eluded Smith off the bowling of Lyon — a difficult catch, not impossible by his usual standards, but continuing hints of fallibility about him at slip, which may relate to worsening tightness of his back. Had the catch been accepted, India would have been eight for 187, 76 in arrears with two tailend wickets left.

After tea, in the last eighteen overs of the softening old ball, India added 73, and Lyon was also unlucky when Ashwin, on 20, nutmegged Renshaw, late to move at leg slip. With the new ball, a fine catch by Renshaw off Pat Cummins and by Cummins off Murphy hurried the innings to a conclusion, although Australia might live to rue their earlier mistakes.

We shall see. When Khawaja fell victim to Iyer’s reflexes at short leg, India sensed an opening, but Travis Head filled the breach with some firm strokes, and Australia could congratulate themselves on a good day’s work. Kohli? In the last over of the day, he could be observed at slip miming strokes. Tomorrow is another day.