New Delhi
August 2015, the deciding match of the three-match Test series in Sri Lanka. The Indian team won the first match by 63 runs and lost the second match by 278 runs. Angelo Mathews chose to bowl after winning the toss but rain hampered both the teams for the first three days. Amidst this rain, Team India scored 312 runs on the board with the help of Cheteshwar Pujara’s century and bowler Amit Mishra’s 59 runs. In reply, the host team was reduced to 201 runs in front of the waving balls of Ishant Sharma. Ishant took 5 wickets in this innings.
After leading by 111 runs in the first innings, India scored 274 runs in the second innings and gave Sri Lanka a target of 374 runs to win the match and the series. Sri Lanka tried hard on the strength of captain Mathews’ century, but the entire team together could score only 268 runs. India won the match by 117 runs on the basis of 4 wickets of Ashwin and 3 wickets of Ishant. India won a Test series on Sri Lankan soil after 22 years. Also, this was India’s first Test series win on foreign soil since the 2011 West Indies tour. And all this was achieved under the captaincy of the person who later became one of the best Test captains not only in India but in the entire world – Virat Kohli.
When Virat Kohli showed the mirror to Australia
This win was very special for Indian cricket in many ways and to understand its significance you have to step back a bit. In the year 2014, we were in Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The injury of captain MS Dhoni handed over the command of the team to Virat Kohli and Kohli started showing proper attitude from the very first match. He scored 115 runs in the first innings. India got the target of 364 runs on the last day. The team management, which had agreed with cricket pundits around the world, also wanted the match to be a draw, but Kohli said – a draw will happen only when we step back from winning.
Kohli, who came after Murali Vijay’s opening, fought hard. Vijay was out one run short of his century, but Kohli kept hitting. Scored 141 runs alone and also took the team beyond 300. Although Australia won this match by 48 runs, this defeat also told the world that the weather is about to change. Dhoni returned before the Gabba Test, India lost that match by 4 wickets. The third match of the series was a draw in Melbourne.
Aggressive attitude against Mitchell Johnson…
This is the same match where Australian fielders were bringing balls from outside the field and Mitchell Johnson was tired of catching kisses from Virat Kohli. Kohli, who scored a century in the first innings and a half-century in the second, gifted boundaries and flying kisses to Mitchell Johnson with open arms in this match. However, till now no one had even a clue that Indian Test cricket was going to change forever after this match.
Virat becomes permanent test captain
After the match, MS Dhoni came to the press conference, answered questions and returned. Shortly afterwards, BCCI issued a release saying that Dhoni has taken retirement from Test cricket. Virat was crowned and the team came to play the fourth test in Sydney. Captain Kohli again scored a century in the first innings of this match. The match was drawn and Australia won the series 2–0. Virat scored 692 runs in 8 innings of 4 Tests of this series at an average of 86.50. He also became the first Indian to score 4 centuries in the same series against Australia on its own soil.
Kohli’s golden period as a batsman was going on. The form is such that even if you give a lollipop in your hand, you will get a century. But Team India was sinking in the Test format. We were at number 7 in the ranking. Before this series defeat, England and Australia had already lost two series by 0-4 and 0-4. From here, Virat not only had to prepare a strong team but also had to break the streak of continuous defeats abroad. The streak was broken and India got the win against Sri Lanka that we mentioned in the beginning.
The golden era of test cricket…
Then the golden era of Indian Test cricket began. Under Kohli’s captaincy, India defeated West Indies 2-0 in 2016 and Sri Lanka 3-0 at home in 2017, but India got real success in 2018. When we defeated Australia 2-1 in their own home for the first time. Virat Kohli is the first captain of Asia whose team won the series on Australian soil. Then India defeated West Indies again in 2019. However, in the meantime, the Indian team also had to face 1-4 defeat against England in 2018 and 1-2 defeat against South Africa in 2021. This defeat was fine because if they had won everything then people would have made Virat Kohli Alexander whereas he is the GOAT.
Under the captaincy of Virat, India took a 2-1 lead in the series by registering spectacular victories at Lord’s and Oval on the historic tour of England in 2021. However, the 5th match of this series was played in 2022 due to Corona viral and with our defeat this series ended in a draw. Jasprit Bumrah was the captain of India in that match.
Virat’s record at home too is amazing
Before you think that Captain Virat is an outside lion, take a look at his domestic statistics. 11 test series, 11 wins. There is no draw, don’t even mention defeat, they don’t like that. During this period, teams from New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and England came again and again, but all returned empty handed. India was the number one team in the world for 5 consecutive years from 2017 to 2021. Virat won 40 and lost just 17 in 68 matches as captain before stepping down from the Test captaincy in 2021. 11 matches were drawn. The winning percentage under Virat’s captaincy was 60. No captaincy of India was anywhere near him in this matter.
But the biggest disadvantage of continuous success is that we start considering keeping our feet on the ground as an insult. Virat won so many matches at home that fans started taking the Test series held on Indian pitches for granted. Virat captained the Indian Test team for 7 years. During this period, India lost only 2 out of 31 home Test matches. It had become our habit that any team would come here and lose the Test match in 2-3 days. India’s defeat at home neither crossed people’s hearts nor their minds.
Prepared the strongest force of Indian fast bowlers
The biggest and lasting contribution of Virat Kohli’s Test captaincy was to change Indian fast bowling forever. Along with Ravi Shastri, he prepared a pace battery which became our major weapon on foreign soil. Virat believed that taking 20 wickets was mandatory to win the test match in any situation. And for this he laid maximum emphasis on the fitness standards, rotation policy and aggressive attitude of the fast bowlers. The Indian pace attack under Virat broke the old tradition of relying on spin-friendly pitches at home and took 20 wickets of the opposing teams on the bouncy and fast pitches of South Africa, England and Australia. It is on the basis of this world-class fast bowling attack that India has continuously won on foreign grounds.