India vs South Africa: A spunky, chubby teenager with gelled hair shot to fame after leading India to glory in the Under-19 World Cup at Kuala Lumpur in early 2008. In an Indian team filled with saint-like icons worthy of their own hagiographies, Virat Kohli, stood out separately with his most un-Indian, ‘bad-boy’ intensity. He became captain soon enough! Well, the Indian captain is continuing to play his character with courage even under fire on the South African tour. Already 2-0 down in Test seies, Virat took unheard of risks! Normally it is a norm in the cricketing world to have three seamers, one spinner and one all-rounder in the Test. It is done to play safe and go for a draw in tough away conditions. However, Kohli took an unconventional stance and refused to bow down to the foreign pitch. The Indian captain decided to play aggressively against Proteas and went with four seamers and one fast-bowling all rounder. Wait! He did even more than this. Kohli won the toss and elected to bat first! Amazing grit indeed.
The Indian captain has thereby signalled to the world that he was going all out to beat the South Africans on their home soil. More importantly, will it win him the match? The Indians have battled through the tough conditions in the first 2 sessions and lost just 3 wickets with Cheteshwar Pujara batting on 26 off 140 balls. India have scored 113/3. In effect, they are ideally placed to take themselves to a big enough score to worry the Africans and try to force a win. And this is where Virat’s bowlers strategy will come into play.
Interestingly, it is not the first time an Indian captain has been so aggressive against an opponent. It ended in good news. Former Indian coach Anil Kumble, during an interview in 2014 described, India’s win against England in the Headingley Test in 2002 as the moment which infused self-belief in the Indian players. “We were able to prove people wrong. Captain Sourav Ganguly decided to bat first in Headingley under conditions not helpful for batting. It was a bold move and the players responded to the challenge by beating England. It sort of ignited a spark in us that we could perform away from home,” said the leg-spinner.
Sourav Ganguly led India won the test match by an innings and 46 runs. The three batting maestros of Indian cricket- Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid all reached the three-figure mark. India posted a mammoth 628 runs in the first innings. In reply England were bowled out for 273 runs in the first innings and followed it up with 309 runs in the second. India batted on a green top against conventional wisdom to win the test. “Always take the pressure up first instead of batting last in a test match,” said Ganguly in post-match conference. Ganguly is India’s most successful overseas test captain!
Meanwhile, today at the Wanderers, although the openers didn’t enjoy much luck, there was plenty of grit shown by Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli. Interestingly, Pujara even made a half-century but not of runs but balls instead. He took 54 balls to get off the mark! Sadly, the right-handed batsman failed to break the 77-run record which is held by Geoff Allot of New Zealand.