Tour of Australia: A Sachin-like welcome for Kohli, but can he deliver?

It’s his fifth Test series Down Under and no wonder, the reception accorded to Virat Kohli is somewhat reminiscent of that which Sachin Tendulkar got in the final lap of his career. The Aussies play their cricket hard — with no room for niceties in the middle — but also know when to doff their hats at a champion.

‘’Well, the king is back in his territory. That’s all I will say,’’ Ravi Shastri, the former India head coach and an unabashed Kohli loyalist, said in the ICC review. Shastri is known for his hyperbole, but when one looks back at the master batter’s record in Australia (1,352 runs from 13 Tests at an average of 54.08), the expectations of the most influential cricketer of this generation are understandable.

The spotlight has been firmly trained on the 36-year-old ever since he was the first Indian player to land on Australian soil for the 2024-25 series, with the local cricket media trying to capture every nugget of how Kohli is going about his business.

The Sydney Morning Herald used a giant photo of him on the opener of their sports section with the title 'A Heavy Crown', and a blurb on how the ‘king’ will be under tremendous scrutiny after five years of what they call ‘underwhelming performances on the red ball scene'.

The Indian team management had decided to go about its business behind closed doors at the WACA (Western Australian Cricket Association) ground for the initial few days before a match-simulation practice on Friday, where social media reported that Kohli edged one from India A bowler Mukesh Kumar to second slip for 15 runs.

The actual battle will, of course, begin exactly a week later in Perth, and there are no prizes for guessing that Pat Cummins’ men will be eager to avenge the back-to-back series defeats at home in 2018-19 and 2020-21. It’s the newly built Optus Stadium where the then captain Kohli produced a batting masterclass of 123, his sixth century in Sir Don Bradman’s country in 2018-19, and he will certainly try to draw inspiration from the memory.

Times, of course, have changed, though the Indian cricket fan has often lived in denial. For the first time since 2014, Kohli slipped out of the top 20 of the ICC Test batters’ rankings this week and what must have been galling for him is how susceptible he looked against the New Zealand spinners as he managed just 93 runs from three Tests as India succumbed to a 3-0 whitewash at home.

There is no end to the debate as to whether his lack of gametime in the longer format in the current year could be one of the reasons behind his tentativeness, both against pace and spin in the recent Tests. If it was ‘personal reasons’ which kept him out of a full five-Test series against a quality England side at home (India nevertheless won the series 4-1), Kohli’s current regime of flying in from his base in the UK less than a week before a Test match has also invited muted criticism.

It’s not exactly rocket science to conclude that for someone who takes such fierce pride in his performance, Kohli (and captain Rohit Sharma) could have walked the extra mile by playing in the ongoing domestic season. In a batting line-up which is devoid of the grit and experience of a Cheteshwar Pujara or Ajinkya Rahane, the staying power of Kohli will certainly hold the key.

How then does Kohli approach the series ahead? Greg Chappell, a mastermind of the game despite his stand-off with star Indian cricketers during his tenure as coach, recalled a conversation with Tendulkar in his column in Sydney Morning Herald: ‘’I explained to him that the mental demands of batting intensify with age. Batting gets harder because you realise how hard it is to make runs at this level and how difficult it is to maintain the mental focus that is required to be successful.’’

‘’It’s not the eyesight or the reflexes that drop off’’ when a player starts ageing but ‘’it's the intense focus that is required that becomes harder to sustain,’’ the former great wrote.

Is Kohli listening?

Kohli’s trips Down Under

2011-12: Four Tests; 300 runs; 100s/50s: 1/1; Avg: 37.5

2014-15: Four Tests; 692 runs; 100s/50s: 4/1; Avg: 86.5

2018-19: Four Tests; 282 runs; 100s/50s: 1/1; Avg: 40.28

2020-21: One Test; 78 runs; 100s/50s: 0/1; Avg: 39