“Well that’s the line I’ve been talking about the whole series. Get it wide and get it full. That’s the sixth time Mitch Starc’s gotten Virat Kohli in Test cricket. The trap was set. The bait was thrown out there and the big fish has fallen for it,” former Australia captain Ricky Ponting said on Seven.
With the exception of his century in Perth, when the fizz had gone from the game, the closest Kohli has come to resisting temptation came on the second day of this Test when he made the Australians bowl at him.
By ignoring balls outside off stump, he dragged Australia’s lines closer to his pads and scored through the leg side. The drives he played were aimed as close to the bowler as he could instead of the gaping hole, greater than the length of a centre square in the MCG’s winter configuration, between mid-off and gully. His extravagant drive at Mitchell Starc from the final ball before lunch on Monday was directed through cover.
Tendulkar, India’s last batting demi-god, provided the template for Kohli. Twenty-one years ago in Sydney, unhappy with being caught behind the wicket earlier in the series, Tendulkar did not hit a boundary through cover in his 241 not out.
The plan was devised after a conversation with his brother, who told him his weakness was a matter of shot selection rather than technique.
“I need discipline to be in the driving seat,” Tendulkar said in an interview published on his Facebook page in 2021. “My natural instincts, they have to be sitting in the passenger’s seat.
“I suddenly realised all the bowlers are bowling in that corridor on the sixth stump, not even fourth stump. If you are going to keep bowling away from me and frustrate me, I’m going to take on this challenge and frustrate you. It’s one versus 11, let’s see who loses patience first. I’m not going to play a single cover drive.”
Steve Waugh did it with the hook shot, but warehousing a stroke that has produced so many runs for a batter requires the discipline of a monk. The confidence and self-belief that has driven Kohli through his career will tell him he still can play that shot well. The habits of a lifetime also die hard.
“He’s done it so much over the years, its become muscle memory for him – cover drive, cover drive, cover drive,” former Australia opener Simon Katich said on SEN.
Loading
This should not be unfamiliar territory for Kohli. On his miserable tour of England in 2014 when he was tormented by James Anderson, Kohli was caught by the wicketkeeper or in the cordon in seven of his 10 innings. Four years later, he averaged nearly 60. The difference?
“He left it a lot better and he was a lot more patient,” Anderson told the Test Match Special podcast in 2020. “He waited for you to bowl at him, and then he’s very strong off his legs so he could score freely.”
Kohli knows what to do, it’s a matter of whether still can.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
