Holy Kohli! Indian skipper enhances his legend

It was not quite ‘Kohli v Australia’, but you’d have been forgiven thinking it so.

Indian batsman Virat Kohli leaves the field at stumps on day two of the second Test match between Australia and India at Perth Stadium in Perth on Saturday.

Yesterday a newspaper pronounced Virat Kohli ‘super duper’ and an ‘uber-success story’, and a commentator praised the positivity of his body language as he walked to the crease. For India’s captain, it was all in a day’s hyperbole. What a challenge — unique in world cricket. He must be Virat Kohli without succumbing to the unavoidable distractions of being Virat Kohli.

With India two for eight, Kohli perhaps felt the tug each way. It was a situation in need of his powers and his presence. The flag-waving Indian claque welcomed him with lusty salaams, the Australian pace attack with probing lengths. Kohli had gone eight innings without a half-century in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, but soon made this seem less like a matter of form than a piece of trivia: a hundred and nine deliveries set it to rights. It was a holding operation — India still trail, on the scoreboard and in the match scenario. But while Kohli batted the match imperceptibly stabilised. It was not quite ‘Kohli v Australia’, but you’d have been forgiven thinking it so; on ‘Kohli v the second new ball’ this morning could this match hinge.

Milder temperatures than the first day eased the bowlers’ burden yesterday, while perhaps also slowing the pitch’s deterioration, with help from a morning’s rolling. For the first hour, in fact, India’s bowlers appeared grooved at a classic ‘pretty length’, grunting as bouncers flew, sighing as edges were beaten, overlooking the accruing runs, which swelled Australia’s first innings past 300 for the first time in seven Test matches — for the first time since Australia last won a Test, in Durban in March. Only a handful of deliveries would have hit the stumps; finally a couple did.

India's Virat Kohli, left, and Ajinkya Rahane look on as Australia's Peter Handscomb dives to stop the ball during play. Picture: AAP

The Australian bowlers had batted attentively. As pundits searched for positive readings on their body-language-o-meters, Starc insinuated an inswinger between Murali Vijay’s bat and pad, and Hazlewood torpedoed KL Rahul with the batsman shaping towards mid-on — sharp bowling, muddled batting, and astute analysis.

Kohli got going with a crisp drive down the ground, repeated in Hazlewood’s next over, bracketed by boundaries through mid-wicket: positive batting, nine inches out of his ground, meeting ambitious bowling, probing away at the stumps, molesting the pads.

With India two for 38 from ten overs, Australia’s bowlers imposed an austerity policy. Between 1.35pm and 2.20pm, Cummins and Lyon yielded only 12 runs in twelve overs. The batsmen did not so much grow passive as assume a posture of armed neutrality. To adapt the vernacular, Pujara padded away with intent while Kohli left in good areas, if one delivery from Nathan Lyon, turning back sharply, sniffed around off bail.

At one point the off-spinner’s figures were a pristine 7-3-5-0 — more like an iPhone passcode or the combination on a brief case than a bowling analysis. At length, Kohli broke the spell with a cover drive so scintillating that it almost threw off stardust.

Kohli plays a shot. Picture: AFP

For a figure who personifies action and vitality, Kohli also has a gift for non-motion, so still as the bowler approaches that a butterfly could alight on the peak of his helmet, so sculpted in defence that he inclines to holding the pose half a beat for personal appraisal. He has a purist’s preferences, taking as much pleasure in a decisive leave as a virile stroke.

Yesterday was Test match special Kohli, humble in the face of the bowling’s demands and the match’s stage, sometimes becalmed although seldom long. The only delivery that caused him regular trouble was on a fifth stump line, his hands sometimes stretching outside his eyeline as his bat searched busily for contact. Beaten, he would give a wry smile, adjust the wristbands on his gloves, and penitently re-mark his guard. Passed by Cummins, he gave an appreciative nod. Recuperating from a painful blow on his bottom hand by Hazlewood, he check drove immaculately to the long-on boundary.

The impasse ended when Pujara feathered Starc down the leg side, although that brought Ajinkya Rahane, whose back foot power suited the pitch’s bounce, and contributed nearly two-thirds of their unbroken 91-run partnership. Kohli passed fifty by carving Cummins over slip, then eked out only singles for the next half-hour. A few overs from stumps, he drilled to mid-on, gestured in the fielder’s direction, then rehearsed a kind of T20 onside flick over the top, which would have brought the house down at Chinnaswamy Stadium on a hot night in the Indian Premier League. It was the nearest he came to indulging himself all day, enhancing his legend all the same. As he walked off unbeaten, his being Virat Kohli had contributed just a little more to his being Virat Kohli.