India Tour of Australia: Virat Kohli’s little master-class

That Mitchell Marsh should almost mess up the straightforward opportunity didn’t help his case either. For it gave Kohli some hope. But as he lay sprawled on the floor at the deep midwicket fence, Marsh somehow managed to get his bucket-like hands around the ball, his fingers awkwardly pointing skywards. The entire Australian contingent was around him in a jiffy.

Kohli had hardly failed to middle a ball till that point. He had done so in the most sublime fashion ever. Kohli had anchored run-chases before, plenty of them and with enormous success to boot. But here he was in a new setting.

A wearing-down fifth day wicket, a spinner at the top of his prowess and a potentially history-altering victory in sight. And he had mastered them all. He had looked in a league of his own from the time he walked out to bat. But as he left to a standing ovation from the biggest one-day crowd to have ever gathered at the Adelaide Oval, it was obvious that the end would come soon after.
It was anti-climactic in ways. For, the contest had ceased to be one as soon as Kohli exited the scene.

Till the time he became Lyon’s sixth victim of the evening, he also looked on course to guide India to their target of 364, especially when he had Murali Vijay at the other end.

The two had guided India to within 159 runs, when the teams broke for tea. With 37 overs still left, the duo simply had to maintain the run-rate of around 3.5 that they had been. Just like he did in the first innings, Vijay had occupied one end with great gumption. He had been erudite in defence and in terms of leaving the ball, and equally classy when it came to timing the ball.

No mean feat
There had been a few minor issues against Lyon, especially in terms of being caught wrong-footed while attempting premeditated sweeps against balls pitching in the rough. But he had also used his feet with elan and air-lifted Lyon, with delectable use of his wrists, over wide mid-on for sixes. But while he saw Kohli become the first overseas batsman to get twin centuries in Australia since Rohan Kanhai in 1961, Vijay suffered a brain freeze. He got stuck on 99, and as he tried to break-free he was trapped in front by Lyon. As it turned out this was to be only the first heartbreak of the evening.

Ajinkya Rahane was then adjudged out caught at short-leg off a ball that hit his pad and ricocheted off his rib two balls later. The floodgates had opened.

Rohit Sharma then spent a nervous 15 minutes at the crease. He almost got out pulling against Mitchell Johnson like he did sweeping against Lyon, before finally plodding his front-foot out and prodding at a delivery that caught his glove and ballooned to David Warner’s protruded left-hand at leg-slip. By now, Australia had 12 men fielding for them. The crowd had joined in the action. A Test match had gone through ebb and flow for four-and-a-half days and now culminated into a pulsating theatre of nerves and counter-nerves. And once Saha fell by the sword he tried to live by, it was all left to Kohli.

Not many would have put it past Kohli to take India through. He had after all thwarted every challenge that the Australians posed him. He had also maintained a strike-rate of over 70 from the go, making a point of how intent he was on going for the runs. As always there were no dearth of eye-catching shots being dished out from the Kohli repertoire.

When Johnson bowled short, he was pulled. When he bowled full, he was driven, just like Ryan Harris and Peter Siddle were. Wickets kept falling at the other end but Kohli kept stretching his front-foot out, kept driving, kept flaying, kept running.

He played Lyon like he was the Duracell Bunny, hyper-actively moving around in his crease and the pitch to deal with the venomous rough patches outside his off-stump. But this knock was not so much about the shots. It was about the determination of a young man to take an outstandingly difficult proposition and turn it into his science project. Along the way he was also guiding a young team into a new phase of its transition, one where it was learning to believe in its true potential with their poster-boy setting the tone.

Lyon’s dozen  
But it was almost apt that he should get out to Lyon. A whole country had wondered whether he was good enough to bowl them to victory. With 12 wickets in the match he had done just that, with seven on a dramatic final day. Some two hours after they had sealed the Test, the Aussies ambled and stumbled onto the Adelaide Oval again. The spirits were at a zenith in the camp, quite literally so.

They stood around the 408 etched on the side of the field, and sang ‘Under the Southern Cross’ screaming ‘Australia you are a F$%%^ing Beauty’. Lyon led the chorus as usual. On Saturday, it seemed apt that he should.