The remarkable star batter of India, Virat Kohli, is once again gearing up to play in the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune as India faces New Zealand in the second Test of the series on Thursday, October 24. Kohli is coming into the game on the back of a brilliant knock of 70 that he played in the second innings of the first Test that was played in Bengaluru.
That was the first half century of the year for Kohli coming to his eighth innings in the longest format in 2024. Looking like his old self in the second innings, he however faced a brutal delivery which was bowled by William ORourke in the first. After waiting for a while to settle down at the wicket, the left mastering Kohli arms shifted into overdrive and the crowd cheered as their home boy displayed his exquisite cover drive and developed a beautiful inside out shot.
Sadly for them, just when they thought Kohli was back in ‘the zone’, he lost his wicket to an easy ball thrown by Glenn Phillips right at the close of play edging him to wicketkeeper Tom Blundell. Therefore, the fans had to continue to wait for the fifty knock as Kohli walked back towards the dressing room.
In the second test match, the charismatic batsman will also come back to the ground where he had once scored his highest Test score during his fight with Steve Smith to emerge as the best Test batsman in their era. On 11th October 2019, it was Kohli’s turn to blast the opposition in an innings after another when several hundreds were already cutting the South African Cricket team to pieces.
While leading the Indian team, he was at his prime and went on to play a fantastic knock of 254 not out with 33 boundaries and a couple of sixes. Kohli was also named the Player of the Match in this Winning by an innings and 137 runs, India marched ahead in the series with an insurmountable 2-0 lead.
Five years forward, he comes back to the site, which was the canvas for his most outstanding performance to the bewilderment of the crowd, for his record-breaking consistency. On the contrary, the magician Kohli has mastered some of the great tricks but sadly, his figures have slipped in the format where he loves playing the most.
At a strike rate of 33.61, he has scored 1815 runs playing 32 matches (56 innings) since 2020 and has scored 2 hundred and 9 fifties. The figures may sound alright at the first glance; however, keeping in mind that it is related to the best batter of the current era verticals, it is certainly a disturbing indicator of his red ball cricket despondency.
As India goes out to play the second Test with the huge burden of expectations hanging over them and the possibility of losing their first home series in 11 years or more pinned on them, everyone will be looking towards Kohli, who during his captaincy, from 2015 to 2021, managed to keep the record of no losses in the country.
Having ensured that the Asian Titans do not lose any Test match at home with his field strategic moves for several years, it is now time for Kohli the batsman of the team to come up and display that the desire to help his team conquer the game’s longest version hasn’t faded in him down one bit.
After the New Zealand series, Kohli will head to Australia where he also exhibited certain aspects of his leadership, holding a bat and displaying his demeanor on the field. Having captained the country on its first-ever series win in Australia in 2018-19, Kohli instilled confidence in the young ones that conquering Australia is possible.
The learnings were clearly seen in the very next series as newbies Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, T. Natarajan and Mohammed Siraj played a pivotal role in India’s second successive triumph in Australia. With another Australia series on the horizon, it becomes all the more important for the Indian team that Kohli finds his ‘midas touch’ back in the remaining two Tests vs New Zealand and heads to Australia like a ‘Lion’ ready to take down his favorite target.
Hence, the Pune Test could well whet the appetite of the Test calendar for Kohli as India looks to win their first title in the longer format of the game. And should they somehow find a way to brave the storm and go out there for a third outing, then their most experienced batter will be paramount in helping them reach the one peak that they are yet to scale. Therefore, as the King goes back to Pune, he will be searching for his swashbuckling form referred to as the ‘Midas Touch’.
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