Why India is not getting the results it wants despite Kohli's heroics

1. Why India is not getting the results it wants despite Kohli's heroics Virat Kohli can reasonably claim that the scoreboard does not tell the whole story but it remains a difficult case to make that India should have won any of the Tests it lost India suffered a 60-run defeat against England in the fourth test in Southampton on Sunday to go down 1-3 in the five-match series. In this article, the author compares the series defeat with the one in South Africa recently to figure out what hampers the Indian test team's performance abroad. Ravi Shastri was seething. In the aftermath of the ODI and T20 series wins in South Africa earlier this year, he gave a much-discussed interview to Mid Day where the coach went to the extent of claiming that people in India are happy to see the Men in Blue lose. The regret over losing the Test series 1-2 was palpable. According to Shastri’s “calculation”, India had lost because it won two sessions less than the Proteas.

2. But others chose to place their scrutiny on the preparations for the tour, which had India going into the first Test without any warm-up games. This changed when India arrived in England. The majority of the squad spent a month before the Tests, as the limited-overs games were scheduled ahead. It raised hope that India would do better this time. It also helped that England was in a shaky moment. An uncertain batting order brought confusion and collapses while the selection of leggie Adil Rashid was a contentious call, particularly so because his record in red-ball cricket was little to speak about. And still, the results in England were not much different from South Africa. The failure to chase down reasonable targets in the first and fourth Tests was reminiscent of the failed fourth-innings efforts in Cape Town and Centurion. India’s bowlers, so often the subject of the lamenting Indian cricket fan, broke through the dark clouds of doubt to ensure that 20 wickets would be picked in every Test. But the batting, which was India’s bulwark in testing conditions historically, fell away. This was the case even as the skipper Virat Kohli broke new boundaries. With a Test still to be played, Kohli has already become the first Indian skipper to exceed the 500-run barrier in a series abroad. Except the rout at Lord’s, he delivered significant contributions in each innings with two hundreds and three half-centuries. (more)