Thriving under pressure

Captaincy has brought the best out of Kohli as he stands tall in batting order

Captaincy sits lightly on Virat Kohli, and the numbers support this inference in emphatic manner.

Having begun his Test captaincy -- albeit as a stand-in for the now-retired MS Dhoni in Adelaide in December 2014 -- on a cracking note with a century in each innings, Kohli has proved in his short but eventful stint at the helm that the extra responsibility only motivates him more.

Having played a dogged innings (unbeaten 49) to save the first Test in Rajkot, the 28-year-old batted with his natural flair and flamboyance here to guide India to a comprehensive 246-run win on Monday. The two Tests showcased Kohli’s evolution as a Test batsman who could not only graft if the situation demanded so but also bat with a positive intent to set up a game.

The technical aspect of his game is obviously sound but his fortitude under pressure is unmatched. When India appeared headed for a possible defeat in Rajkot, Kohli -- the lone remaining hope of the side – jokingly pointed to the umpire ‘one bouncer per over’ when a ball jumped to shoulder level off a spinner. Even when all of Kohli’s energies were directed towards saving his team from a potential embarrassment, he had time to indulge himself in some light-hearted activity.     

“My biggest challenge was to not think too much about the situation that I was in,” Kohli said about his second innings in Rajkot. “I think to find that balance was a revelation for my own mindset. Sometimes you tend to overthink, thinking too much about where the bowler is going to bowl or what he is going to do next to get you out, how much time is left in the game… Rather than that I was just focusing on one ball at a time and trying to take my mind off the situation. I think that was something that was a challenge for me and I was able to do that in the second innings. That gave me more satisfaction as a batsman than scoring a hundred or getting a big score,” he explained.

Besides the Adelaide Test, Kohli has led India in 18 other Tests, taking over the mantle permanently from the Sydney Test in early 2015. From Adelaide to Visakhapatnam, Kohli has been India’s best batsman in the longer version and that’s saying a lot because Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara have both topped averages of 50 per innings while Murali Vijay has hovered around 47.

Where Kohli has scored 1783 runs at a staggering average of 59.76 in his 19 Tests as skipper, he has 2098 runs at 41.13 in 31 Tests under other captains. Half of his 14 hundreds have come as captain and on six of those seven occasions he has gone past 140, including two double hundreds.   
 
Rahane during the same period has gathered 1594 runs in 21 Tests at 53.13 with six tons (career average 48.34) while Pujara has amassed 1245 in 16 appearances at 51.87 with four centuries (career ave. 50.27). Vijay has to his credit 1297 runs in 17 Tests at 46.32 (career ave. 40.04).     

While Kohli’s ability to chase under pressure in ODIs is already the stuff of legends, his record in the fourth innings -- when the conditions are generally more difficult to bat than at any stage of a game -- is exemplary. Kohli’s threat was the biggest reason behind Alastair Cook not declaring England’s second innings earlier than he did in Rajkot. The Delhi batsman averages 65.27 in 15 fourth innings and has a strike rate of 61.31 per 100 balls, reflecting his quality of batsmanship and physical ability to stay focused over the length of a match.

While we generally hear players offering that they detach themselves from their captaincy to ensure that their batting didn’t suffer, Kohli maintained it was difficult to separate the two tasks.  

“It's a difficult thing to detach yourself from being captain when you go out there to bat especially when you are playing five batters,” he noted. “The responsibility obviously increases much more. But it also makes me not to hit the ball in the air. Honestly I don't feel the need to do that because I believe in my abilities to play on the ground and still score at a healthy rate,” he offered.

Kohli, however, isn’t unaware of the tough times he will encounter as captain, especially when he takes over the other two formats as well from Dhoni. 

“To keep a check on each and everything and then to concentrate on your batting, it does take a toll on you but right now I am pretty fine. Maybe in three-four years’ time I can analyse how much load I am feeling but at the moment it's coming along nicely so I am pretty okay with it,” he thought.