When Virat Kohli walked in to bat for the first time in the opening Test at Birmingham during India’s previous tour of England in 2018, he was carrying significant excess baggage on his mind.
Kohli’s returns up to that point in England read abysmally. His team was in a precarious position on a pitch reasonably difficult to bat on and his famous nemesis James Anderson was licking his lips. Kohli shall forever be grateful to Dawid Malan for dropping a sitter in the slip cordon while he was still early into his innings and anything but set.
From that point on, he went on to essay an innings of a lifetime that truly remains one of his finest to this day; and there are a fair few to choose from.
Kohli only went from strength to strength as the series progressed and ended up scoring almost 60 runs per dismissal over the five Tests. These aren’t the most common returns for a visiting batsman in England. In last five years, only Steve Smith has produced better numbers with the bat. Of Indian batsmen, one would need to go back to Rahul Dravid in 2011 to find anything remotely comparable. And yet, despite Kohli’s sustained excellence throughout, India could only manage to win a solitary Test while losing four. Many argue the 4-1 scoreline wasn’t the most accurate reflection of how closely fought the series was but beyond a point, these are mere copes.
Three years later, a lot has changed. India has conquered its final frontier beating the might Australia down under and twice at that.
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Under Kohli, the team boasts of an extremely potent fast-bowling unit led by Jasprit Bumrah who was only a newcomer in 2018 but has since emerged as one of the finest in the world. Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have since cracked the code of finding success with spin outside Asia and are mighty effective both at exerting pressure from one end and also finding crucial wickets when the chips are down. In Rishabh Pant, India has a bona fide match-winner with the bat who’s only getting better with his glove-work.
So far so good. The squad is amply experienced and adequately deep. Add to it England are without Ben Stokes who lends them the kind of balance any captain would kill for. Jofra Archer and Chris Woakes too are out of at least the first two Tests. The English batting is thin on experience and overly reliant on their captain Joe Root’s individual brilliance. Few would argue against India being the resounding favourites going into this series and that there may never be a more opportune time for Kohli’s men to replicate their heroics in Australia on the British shores.
But a very cursory glance at the form of India’s batting veterans over the last couple of years and the Indian fans would suddenly want to keep their ambitions in check. Cheteshwar Pujara, a lynchpin in the middle-order has not scored a hundred since his run in Australia during the 2018-19 series. Kohli himself hasn’t reached three figures in Tests for over 20 months now. Vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane sporadically keeps coming up with a memorable knock in every other series but has showed little consistency. Since the start of 2020, all three have averaged mid to high 20s. And that doesn’t speak very flatteringly of a middle order that is supposed to inspire confidence.
India’s troubles are compounded by the fact that Rohit Sharma’s opening partner and arguably the most promising upcoming batsman in the world Shubman Gill has been ruled out of the series owing to an injury. Alongside Pant, Gill was the chief architect in crafting that famous series-winning chase at Brisbane earlier this year. His absence leaves India in a spot of bother particularly after how impressive and assured he looked in the English conditions in the World Test Championship final in June. India are also going into the first Test without the first-choice backup opener Mayank Agarwal who is nursing a concussion.
Runs from lower middle order had time and again bailed India out both in Australia and in the home victory over England that followed. However, if the WTC final is anything to go by, these conditions should prove a little too gruelling for that formula to continue to work. While runs from the likes of Pant and Jadeja down the order shall certainly be crucial in low-scoring and fast-moving Tests, India will badly need big the four seasoned pros to come good from the very beginning.
In 2018, Kohli had completely given up the temptation to dominate Anderson and was very happy to just about survive the latter’s testing spells to be able to pounce on others. This approach paid rich dividends but sadly, Kohli’s teammates more often than not fell way short of plugging the rest of the holes. Kohli is very unlikely to repeat the 2018 heroics, his current form notwithstanding. But India might not need those big runs from their captain if the rest of the batting manages just about to not collectively capitulate at critical points in the series.
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And playing out new-ball spells from Anderson and Stuart Broad will go a long way in achieving this. In the absence of Woakes and Archer, England’s bowling will be decisively light and even if they become available later, it is highly unlikely for all four to play together given they need them all to be ready and fiery for the Ashes down under late this year. With Stokes missing, England will need an extra seamer at all times which also means India won’t have any spin challenge thrown their way in all likelihood.
Last summer, against the West Indies and Pakistan attacks – considerably less potent than India’s – the English batting was caught out of its depth more than once. The same young batting group has been retained for this season but while each one of them is a year older, rarely any wiser. Barring Root, they are anything but equipped to deal with the variety and depth in the Indian bowling contingent. Should Kohli be able to reverse his luck with the coin toss, any first innings score north of 300 should prove to be too much for this English unit to compete against.
India have raised the bar of expectations extremely high since winning two series down under on the trot. It’s an achievement unlikely to be repeated by any team in foreseeable future. South Africa now remains the only nation India is yet to win a Test series in. A tour later this year beckons to correct that record but South Africa is a massively weakened unit from their glory days and a series win over there will tell us nothing about Kohli’s men that we do not know already.
Beating England on their home soil on the other hand is an extremely uphill task, though it may not seem so on the face of it. 2008 was the last time a team won in England in a series of 4 or more Tests and it took South Africa’s golden generation under Graeme Smith to achieve that. Somehow, England never feel indomitable or ruthless at home the way India do or until recently Australia did. With the conditions allowing the opposition seamers to come into play, the contest always feels more even.
But despite these vulnerabilities and weaknesses, it takes something extremely special to actually beat England at home, especially in a long series, which thoroughly tests the depth and character of a team. Nearly the entire core of the current Indian squad is in their 30s and it’s unlikely all of them will get another shot at this as a group one more time. This is by far their best chance in a very long time and it will not be unfair to say the series is theirs to lose.
It’s been 14 years since India last won in England under Dravid and with so many things falling their way, no matter how rhetorical it sounds, you just got to wonder if not now, then when?
