Crumbling Australia help Kohli awake from batting slumber

Perth: Among many consequences of Australia’s slide towards a massive defeat in the first Test against India, one of the most seismic may well be that they have allowed Virat Kohli a way into the series.

Coming into bat with his side already 321 runs ahead, albeit against the second new ball, Kohli was handed a gilt-edged opportunity to find his feet on Australian soil against a flagging attack on Sunday, when Perth temperatures neared 37 degrees Celsius.

Virat Kohli celebrates his ton.Credit: Getty Images

A few hours later, Kohli swept a Marnus Labuschagne leg break to the boundary to raise his 30th Test century, seventh in Australia and first of 2024. As Travis Head sprawled along the boundary to try to save four, Kohli did not immediately realise he had got there. After a few moments, though, he broke out into a broad grin as he saluted the crowd.

The outstanding innings of Yashasvi Jaiswal, soaring to 161 with a big slice of help from the experienced KL Rahul, ensured that India’s 47-run first-innings lead was not wasted and quickly put the Australians into a defensive frame of mind.

On day two Australia had been disappointed by the amount of purchase afforded them in the air and off the seam, and were leery about the Kookaburra ball they had been given. But by the time Kohli walked out to the middle, the scoreboard’s yawning deficit meant it was difficult for the hosts to impose the sort of pressure that India’s former captain has felt in the middle lately.

Though he has always maintained a desire to bat in difficult conditions and circumstances where his teams needs him most, it is not hard to imagine Steve Smith quietly wishing he’d had a similar opportunity to get going here, rather than walking out amid the chaos of the first evening and Jasprit Bumrah’s match-turning spell.

Kohli’s struggles over the past few years have been documented more minutely than perhaps any other batting decline in modern times, as befits the biggest name in Indian, and therefore world, cricket.

But he has worked assiduously to be in good fettle for this tour, unveiling his reworked methods on the opening day of the series, as broken down by Seven commentator Ricky Ponting.

“He has changed his guard. He is up and out of his crease, you’ll see that back foot is more over on middle and off-stump than we’re used to seeing,” Ponting said before leaving the game to attend the IPL auction. “He is trying to get into the line of the ball so he can hit the ball through the leg-side.

Virat Kohli upper cuts Mitchell Starc.Credit: Getty Images

“The reason he is doing that is because the way the Australians have bowled to him the last couple of times he has been in Australia, it has been this wider line, [it] has been his undoing.

“Then you have a look at his dismissals against fast bowling since 2022. Look how many are wide outside the off-stump. That is why he has changed his guard today and that is why he is more on off-stump. He is trying to get into the line that the Australians will bowl and the majority of his runs early on, on the leg-side.”

Those adjustments were given only a brief view on day one, before Josh Hazlewood summoned a sharp lifter that caught out Kohli as he tried to get forward on a fresh pitch. Sunil Gavaskar was moved to suggest that Kohli’s stance so far out of his crease was unsuited to Australia.

But Test cricket’s team elements include the hard work of the top order to allow batters in positions four to seven to get going against an older ball: former opener Matthew Hayden has famously referred to the top three as “the engine room” and four to six as “interior decorators”.

Jaiswal’s combination of silk and steel built the most lavish of foundations for Kohli, a welcome difference for him to some of the more rickety platforms India’s batters have become used to at home on difficult wickets in recent seasons.

A strong top-order performance can often set the scene for a breakthrough display by middle order players. In 1989 in England, a young opener called Mark Taylor forged his first Test hundred at Headingley. He smoothed a path for Steve Waugh to hammer an unbeaten innings of 177, also his first Test hundred, but after a much longer wait than Taylor.

For Kohli, the breathing room allowed him to get started at his own pace, waiting 10 balls for his first run and 22 for his first boundary, a delectable on drive back past Cummins. A six arrived when Kohli upper cut Mitchell Starc over third, and there was a sweep off Nathan Lyon and then a flick of Cummins to pass 50. The second half of the innings was a case of motoring to three figures and a declaration, both of which arrived more or less perfectly on time.

His captain this week, Jasprit Bumrah, had spoken optimistically of Kohli’s chances of an impact on this series. He also has the benefit of good memories in Perth – he sculpted another superb century on this very ground in 2018.

“He’s one of the greats of the game,” Bumrah had said. “I have no doubts about how he’s preparing, he’s mentally switched on and looking to contribute. The signs are ominous.”

Ominous was a good way of describing the roar from Indian fans when Kohli reached his hundred. They composed a large proportion of the 26,166 spectators at Perth Stadium on a hot Sunday afternoon.

Should this be the start of a late-career resurgence for Kohli, the Australians won’t just see it on the scoreboard. Their ears will be ringing from the adulation of the vast Indian contingent that will follow this series right around the country.

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