Walking out of the player’s pavilion onto the Feroz Shah Kotla Ground at the Arun Jaitley Stadium at the start of any match you have the eastern skies as a backdrop; and a quick glance back towards the pale golden light streaming across, cutting above the player’s pavilion helps you get acquainted with daylight.
Virat Kohli would have taken that walk countless times.
It would have been the same pavilion where, in 2006, after his father’s death, the then 18-year-old upstart would have braved his way out, walking amidst probably the lowest point of his young life. He must have glanced back hoping to draw strength from the sunlight falling on him. Kohli would eventually make a match-saving 90 for Delhi that very day – an emotional box story for the leading dailies.
That was probably the day ‘The Virat Kohli’ success story was set in stone – much before his Under-19 World Cup triumph.
17 years later, Kohli is all set to take that walk one more time come February 17, but this time as the country’s most beloved, the city’s very own, the most successful player of his generation, the G.O.A.T, a global superstar no less. And as he would glance back, after having achieved practically everything there is out there to, he may as well bask in the glory of that pale golden light; and he will also be met by an embossed typography on the player’s pavilion – Virat Kohli Pavilion.
When the stadium was renamed the Arun Jaitley Stadium in 2019 in honour of the former DDCA president, the player pavilion stand was changed to ‘Virat Kohli Pavilion’ and it will be the first time the former India captain will be playing a Test match after the name change.
Kohli last played a Test at his home ground in Delhi in 2017 and he would have happy memories of that trip. He had ransacked 243 off 287 deliveries in the first innings – his 4th Test double – and then went on to add a 50 in the second. That was the time Kohli was at the peak of his powers. In that series, he has smashed 104* at Eden and 213 in Nagpur.
This would be Kohli’s fourth Test at the Kotla. His first was vs Australia in 2013 (1 and 41), second against South Africa in 2015 (44 and 88) with the last being against SL.
He comes into the game on the back of a dry 21-match spell without a hundred. While the propensity of racking up a triple figure isn’t the only parameter to gauge a player’s form, his average during this spell (from 27 Nov 2019 – since his last Test hundred), has dipped nearly half of his career average. In 21 matches he has 929 runs at 25.80, as opposed to his career average of 48.68. From his debut in 2011 to November 2019, the former Indian skipper’s career average was 55.68.
Kohli made the headlines when he arrived in his black Porsche Panamera for the practice sessions, but what may have gone unnoticed is the vigour with which he practised for one hour, away from the public gaze two days before the Test. He did not travel with the team and in the company of India ‘A’ regular Saurabh Kumar, the left-arm spinner, Kohli was at it.
Trying to replicate the potentially abrasive pitch at the Kotla, Kohli made Kumar bowl on a rough patch outside off stump that he had created and looked to counter deliveries bowl on and around that area. He danced down the track and missed a few; he skied a few trying to half-pull some; his forward lunges and defences were not as assured as we have seen, but the intent to make it better was clearly there.
Kohli averages a mere 26 against spin in the last 22 innings and moreover has fallen to the tweakers 12 times – six each to left-armers and right-armers. While Australia’s XI still is not clear on how they will include their two left-arm spinners – Aston Agar and Matt Kuhnemann. Kohli will be weary of the Todd Murphy and Nathan Lyon threat.
In Nagpur, Kohli got a bit unlucky with his dismissal, a faint edge down the legside for Caery to complete a juggling catch and he will be eying to make amends in his home ground.
And as he walks out to bat here in the second Test and glances back at the Virat Kohli Pavilion he will have enough motivation to make this occasion special, sweeter and more memorable.
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