Virat Kohli’s Sad Decline In Test Cricket Continues

Maybe all Virat Kohli needed was some luck. After needling a teenager wasn’t enough to spark the old magic, perhaps a rub of the green could do the trick and revive a struggling batter who India might be better off without.

Once again coming in early, as the fifth and final Test against Australia got underway, Kohli on his very first delivery received a rising delivery outside the offstump that he – and everyone watching – was expecting from nemesis Scott Boland.

All he could do once again was poke tentatively as the ball caught the edge and flew low down to second slip, where Steve Smith appeared to scoop the ball to gully, where Marnus Labuschagne completed a remarkable catch.

The Australians were jubilant and so too the home fans at heaving SCG as another record crowd was set to tumble in a series that has captivated a country not always besotted with cricket or its national team.

Smith was adamant that it was a fair catch, but third umpire Joel Wilson thought otherwise after replays were inclusive and there was enough doubt that the ball had touch the ground as Smith scooped it into the air.

Of course, the incident blew up and there just had to be another round of controversy in cricket’s most tempestuous rivalry. Some thought it was clearly out, others thought differently. In other words what you saw depended on who you supported.

But Kohli still had a massive reprieve and Australian fans feared the worst. He will now make a hundred, they dreaded. Kohli, however, didn’t look rejuvenated. He didn’t boast that steel demeanour that has made him cricket’s most famous firebrand.

He cut a defeated figure in much the same sad way he looked when he trudged off the Melbourne Cricket Ground turf on day five.

Kohli just could never get going and it felt like a matter of time before he would be dismissed. He was in survival mode and did not score a boundary in his 69 balls at the crease – never had Kohli faced that many deliveries without hitting a four.

You feel in his pomp, where he exuded so much aura, that Kohli would have found a way to dismantle the metronomic Boland. But at this fading juncture of his career, Kohli is helpless and out of ideas.

His only score of note was his century in Perth when he came in against a tiring Australia attack and with India very much in the ascendency. That was quite clearly an outlier and it’s starting to be excruciating to watch him fall in always the same wretched way.

As was the case on day one at the SCG where he finally inevitably fell behind the wicket to Boland, who has gone from Australian domestic journeyman to potentially ending the great Kohli’s career faster than anyone expected.

After a decade so far worth of mediocrity in Test cricket, Kohli’s true talent seems to now lie in clinging to his spot in India’s team. Captain Rohit Sharma, either by self or stealth, has not survived into Sydney.

The 36-year-old Kohli has, but the future looks bleak. A series on seaming surfaces in the UK is next, where an energetic, young England attack will be waiting.

Perhaps Kohli will be wise to call time on his career at the iconic SCG, where so many champions over the years have finished up.

But Kohli has neve been about romanticism. There is a job to do for his country. One innings remains.