Is there life after Virat Kohli for India?

Virat Kohli is the biggest name in world cricket but not necessarily the key player in the series. Who can step up for India when he departs after the first Test?

India captain Virat Kohli will leave a gaping hole when he leaves Australia

Is there life after Virat Kohli? Or, does the Indian captain take interest with him when he flies home to be by his wife after the first Test?

Who will berate uncouth spectators? Who will inspire the expat community in the stands to rise up against the home side and make them feel as if strangers on their own fields? Who will stand chest to chest with Tim Paine and provoke the defining moment from the hitherto unsure Australian captain? Who will scowl? Who will smile just so?

Should your attention be distracted from the critical moment it mattered little when Sachin Tendulkar’s wicket was lost in a match on the subcontinent. The event silenced the birds in the trees. The universe yawned like a sea withdrawing before the tsunami. There was a vacuum. An unsettling absence. The air about Tendulkar vibrated, but when the great man was dismissed everything went still.

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Kohli creates a different buzz, another level of energy, but one which is unmistakeable and omnipresent in any game where he is present. He is more rock star than high priest.

The Indians are huddled two floors below Pat Cummins, David Warner, Steve Smith and co in a Sydney hotel and the knowledge of their presence has made everyone breathe a little easier. They made it! The summer is so close you can almost hear the tossed coin deflect the clay and ordain the unfolding of the day. Six more sleeps and it’s Christmas. The first international men’s match in this country at the same venue — the SCG — where the last was played before the curtain fell.

Among the anxieties which cannot be dispelled is what is left in the Indian camp when Kohli leaves?

The captain has gravitas. Even Australian broadcasters and newspapers want to build their campaigns around him. Expats say the obsession with him here is greater than at home. Among the arguments being pressed in meeting rooms about why Melbourne should get the first and second Tests if Adelaide is denied the series opener is that it would allow the southern capital some taste of Virat before he goes.

Sydney and Canberra will get their fair share of Virat in the limited-overs series apparently. Melbourne deserves a bit of that. Poor Melbourne has been through so much, surely Virat is their reward.

Naturally Steve Smith, David Warner and Marnus Labuschagne will be star attractions with bat for the home side and anyone who can wave that object after reaching three figures on either side will be celebrated.

When Josh Hazlewood was asked who, after the skipper, the fast bowlers would target he demurred and said Kohli was not the most dangerous batsman in the side and Cheteshwar Pujara was the one they needed be most careful of.

“He’s the old school Test batter — he bats time and scores runs,” Hazlewood said. “He frees up their middle order to play more aggressive when bowlers are tired and the field opens up.”

If you cast your mind back to the 2018-19 series it was Pujara who batted and batted and batted. His 521 runs was twice what any Australian managed, he ranks seventh in the Test batsmen rankings but he is not the sort of player who sells tickets. Indeed, if you check under Not Box Office in the cricket encyclopaedia you will see his picture.

Pujara is so Not Box Office he can’t get a gig at the IPL — a snub suffered by only one other member of the Indian squad.

Every series craves new blood and while the anticipation among Australians this time is for a sighting of Will Pucovski or Cameron Green there was similar expectations around young Prithvi Shaw in the last series.

Then 18 years old, he’d just carried the reputation established by scoring 500-plus runs in an innings at school all the way to a Test debut. Hand-nurtured in cricket from the crib by a devoted father, we anticipated something of what Sachin displayed in these parts at a similar age but were frustrated by an injury that saw him carried from the tour match and the tour before a Test was played.

Mayank Agarwal is locked in to open and he is a man who can provide some entertainment. Last year he lit up the Test arena with a double century against South Africa and another against Bangladesh.

Rohit Sharma, another who can provide spark to the game, is being flown in late because of injury. Things are never as clear as they should be, but the worry is he will have to do a fortnight hard lockdown when he arrives which means no training and little chance of playing the first Test.

When Kohli does leave, KL Rahul will take over the role of captain. His was not the happiest of visits to Australia last time and it ended when he was sent home along with Hardik Pandya after both made inappropriate comments on a television chat show.

Dynamic batsman Rishabh Pant provided plenty of entertainment in the previous series if not just for his exchange with Tim Paine about baby sitting, but he too is not guaranteed a place in the starting XI.

There is no lack of interest in this series which features two of the strongest sides in the game.

Indeed the most interesting thing about this series might just be who steps up to lead India in the manner we have come to expect when Virat is in town.

While he is here, however, make the most of him.