CHENNAI: Great leaders of men don’t follow a rigid template. They are flexible in their thought process, driven as much as by spontaneity as imagination. They are thus by default. But even the greatest of them have a preferred choice. A comfort zone. For India’s three-Test-old cricket captain Virat Kohli — it’s too premature to judge whether he would be a great captain or not — that comfort zone is playing five bowlers. He admitted it as much, before and after the Fatuallah Test “I certainly believe in giving the team a chance to pick up 20 wickets. I’m a big fan of playing five bowlers in a 6-5 combination. You only need two to three batsmen to click to get a score of 500,” he said before the Test.
True to his words, he drafted in three seamers and two spinners. While taking the decision, he would have certainly weighed in the conditions, the opposition batsmen, the ability of his own bowlers, and significantly, the competence of the lower order. Ravichandran Ashwin’s utility, even in overseas conditions, is proven. Harbhajan Singh can be devastating in the subcontinent. Between them, they have four Test hundreds.
Kohli trusts their abilities. “I would want someone like, who is averaging 40 with the bat in Test matches - you really can’t ask for more from an all-rounder - and someone like Harbhajan to step up with the bat, and Wriddhiman Saha too. If those three start clicking, you literally have eight batsmen,” he reasoned.
Against Bangladesh, his arguments were justified. The openers scored big hundreds and Ajinkya Rahane fell two runs shy of the three-figure mark. India declared at 462 for six.
But against more rounded opponents, can Kohli’s strategy backfire? After all, his predecessors have mostly employed the five-bowler formula as a last-ditch resort. MS Dhoni was inexplicably reluctant. “If we have four great strike bowlers, we could have gone with an extra batsman. West Indies, in their heyday, went with four quicks. But all four of them were lethal. But with our attack, we need five bowlers to take 20 wickets,” reckoned former pacer TA Sekhar.
So Kohli is just being realistic, his strategy catalysed by circumstance. He has been part of a side that has struggled to dismiss their opponents twice, especially overseas. Only once in the last 14 Tests have India managed this, and on several occasions have they rued the lack of a fifth bowler. Wanderers 2013, Trent Bridge 2014 and Wellington 2014 spring immediately to the discussion thread.
At the Wanderers, India laboured for 136 overs on the fourth and fifth days, but couldn’t pluck the last three wickets. In Wellington, India had New Zealand at 86 for six, but Kiwis made a mini recovery to post 192. In Trent Bridge, England were 298 for 9 before Joe Root and James Anderson pushed them to 496.
“In each instance, India could have benefited if they had a fifth bowler. Now almost every team has five bowlers, though the fifth one is usually an all-rounder. We don’t have an all-rounder and these batsmen who can bowl a little won’t help. Until we unearth the next all-rounder, we should stick with five bowlers in Tests,” he explained. But why it took the strategists this long to realise this logic baffles. Then, Kohli is already debunking a few Indian stereotypes.
