England v India 2014: Time for Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli to chin up and deliver
As the teams head to London for the final Test of the series, 2-1 looks far from an unimagined scoreline at the beginning of the tour and, in most ways, is a fair reflection of the superior execution of skills. The nuances, though, have a different story to tell: some of England's top performers of this series have emphatically overachieved – given form and/or ability, while those rated highly in the visitors’ camp have grossly underperformed.
The form, or the lack of it, of two young, promising Indian batsmen has been a source of pronounced scrutiny and disappointment. While Cheteshwar Pujara's problems are restricted to merely a lack of conversion, Virat Kohli is struggling to even getting to that stage. Yes, the openers have failed consistently, and the lower middle order hasn't provided that assuring cushion; given Pujara's attributes and Kohli's dream batting form, though, averages of 25.87 and 13.50 respectively are frustrating for themselves, the team and its followers.
Timing the contact as late and as close to the body as possible, ability to manoeuvre backfoot/frontfoot play, vigilant concentration and putting a high price tag on his wicket are a few uncommon features that defined Rahul Dravid. Not surprisingly, he enjoyed success on seaming tracks in England on almost every tour. Among the current lot, Pujara's technique resembles that to the Dravid the most; before the tour commenced, Pujara was touted as the player for the conditions and opposition. While he has ticked a few boxes out of the expected emulation in his young international career, England's back room planning and clinical implementation has opened up his otherwise watertight technique. The weight transfer has been affected, which is forcing the hands and the right shoulder to cover the line of the delivery. He does not possess the high left elbow driving accessory, which is perturbing his usual shot-making for the slightly opened up batting stance. Strangely, his dismissals against spinners too have swelled in number, which probably is a greater concern than his other problem.
Other than India's pivot, the X-factor in the batting, too, hasn't clicked. The swagger in the body language is there, the timing is there, but, somehow, the off-stump channel has been a nemesis for somebody who not long ago was bullying bowlers across teams at will. He tried to leave it, he tried to go at it with soft hands, yet the corridor of uncertainty has made Kohli poke at deliveries, make certain dismissals look irresponsible and shovel out confidence from his mind. While cricket is primarily a physical sport, many battles are won or lost in the mind, including those a player has with himself. May be it’s time for India's number 4 to recollect his predecessor overcome one such battle and repeat the act for himself. Tendulkar's 2nd highest Test score is a famous hundred like most others, but the 241* at Sydney is a piece of illustrious legend. Kohli may or may not be the genius that Tendulkar was, but even a minor replication of that knock will help him weed out this developing bug from his system.
To be fair, both are on their 1st trip to England and are up against the Anderson-Broad duo in their pomp. The disparity in the experience column, too, has shown up with the consistency of recurring errors. Analysts like to rate a player after a cycle of his initial burst, as opposition coaches would have carefully examined his game and devised strategies to counter it by then. Good players confront such challenges and overcome them without consuming much time.
Pujara and Kohli have the quality to improve their game after the tough lessons in South Africa, New Zealand and England, and also the availability of recent references. For a young side in the rebuilding phase, Pujara and Kohli scoring runs to lead the batting would have been the ideal proposition, which hasn’t realized. All is not lost, and neither is the current series; hopefully, either of the two or both are just one big knock away from good batting form.