“Modern day greats will figure out their way… you know… path,” Rohit Sharma said with a smile when he was asked about Virat Kohli’s habit of chasing deliveries outside off-stump. Not a word less or a word more but there was an underlying sense of assurance that Kohli will himself find his way.
Just 15 minutes after Rohit’s comments at the pre-match press conference on Tuesday, Kohli was in the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) nets looking to find his way. He faced quicks Harshit Rana, Prasidh Krishna with the new ball and some side-armers were in operation too. India’s most experienced batter was a picture of concentration during the time he batted under the harsh sun, and lost it, momentarily, when there was booing from the crowd when KL Rahul, batting in the adjacent net, was dismissed.
Except that, the only dialogue he had was with Rana and Krishna, and it happened after almost every delivery. The plan seemed simple – face deliveries in the corridor just outside off-stump and keep leaving them. Ball after ball, shoulder arms and then get that assurance from the seamer who would confirm the point of impact in the net right behind the batter.
“Kaha laga, idhar tha ki uppar? (Where did it make contact – here or above?),” Kohli would ask Rana who would nod and add “haan bhaiya fifth-sixth stump pe tha. Jab main seam se daal raha hu nikal raha hai, aur bahar kara raha hu to aur bahar jaa raha hai (Yes, brother, it was on fifth-sixth stump. When I’m bowling with the seam, it is going and when outside, then it is going further away)”. The Delhi boys were very chatty and Rana gave his senior teammate an early indication of the fresh wicket they were playing on.
“Aaj bhaiya bounce zyaada hai wicket se, pad ke nikal raha hai (Today there is extra bounce off the surface, it is jumping up after landing),” he said before Kohli nodded and took guard again. In between, there was a quick query by bowling coach Morne Morkel on the type of bowlers Kohli wanted and the batter just said “whatever” and was back in position. The position, too, was interesting as Kohli, unlike most of India batters, stood a bit outside the crease and even after getting rushed on by the side-armers, he persisted with the strategy of meeting the ball a bit ahead.
Krishna was in good rhythm and was making most of the freshness of the surface. The channel was around the fifth stump and he continued to hit the good length spot. Kohli kept leaving and only put his willow to the deliveries which were either close or full to be driven. There were some crunching drives, plenty of “yes, one. Yes, two. No run” as he worked hard towards sorting those issues outside the off-stump.
There was a left-arm net bowler in operation, too, but he was comfortably dealt with during the right-hander’s intense net session. He would swap nets, take mini-breaks, keep an eye on his teammates but there were no conferences where he discussed batting or sought any feedback. There were some applauses by Morkel early on and that was probably the only feedback he got from the coaching staff. Krishna kept asking where to bowl next, sought feedback and did test Kohli with that probing channel.
The channel which he has poked at a lot in the last few series. A channel he knows has led to his downfall but he has found it difficult to get that discipline. The team knows he will figure out, they are certain he will figure it out, just like he has multiple times in the past, and Rohit’s underlying assurance semeed to have echoed the mood in that change room.
The “modern day great” is fighting a battle with himself and would hope that in this ‘I vs Me’, Virat Kohli emerges the real winner. India need their talisman to rediscover his mojo and they would hope it happens with the Boxing Day Test which is expected to have over 2,50,000 people across the five days.