SportsKohli vs world

Centurion, December 25

Skipper Virat Kohli will be battling on multiple fronts with the aim of getting the tricky team combination right as India start the three-Test series against South Africa here tomorrow.

India will have a real shot at winning a series in South Africa for the first time, with the home team short on experience and going through difficult times. But there are certain selection issues that would bothering Kohli and coach Rahul Dravid. The choice between untested rookie Shreyas Iyer and the proven but out-of-form Ajinkya Rahane for the No. 5 slot is a difficult one for them, with the fear of the unknown being a persistent factor.

Not to mention the hard call on whether Shardul Thakur — with far superior skills — should be the fifth bowler in place of Ishant Sharma, who is clearly in decline. These are not easiest of decisions to make, and they require great tactical acumen and an equal measure of communication skills. Recently, during the Test match against New Zealand in Mumbai, the team management could “rest” (read: drop) both Rahane and Ishant on the pretext of injuries, but if the duo are not in the playing XI tomorrow, it will be as good as being dropped. Since their historic first visit in 1992, the tour to South Africa has been India’s Achilles’ heel. — PTI

Captain’s battles

An away Test series with some interesting sub-plots and hidden narratives adds to the intrigue, especially for ‘King Kohli’. In this series he will be fighting multiple battles, even though he might emphatically deny this in public. Some battles are tangible, a few intangible. First, Kohli the captain would like to reassert his supremacy with victory against a side which has only two players with 50-plus games — skipper Dean Elgar (69 Tests) and senior keeper-batter Temba Bavuma (53). It helps that fast bowler Kagiso Rabada will not have the dangerous Anrich Nortje to share the new ball with, and left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj is the least of the worries for Indian batters. Secondly, Kohli, the best batter in the team, has not scored a Test hundred since 2019 and has an average of less than 30 in this time. It does not match the lofty standards associated with the skipper. He would be determined to fire in this series. Finally, Kohli is going into this series after taking on the establishment. By bluntly speaking his mind on the ODI captaincy issue, he has left BCCI president Sourav Ganguly in a very embarrassing position. Those who know Kohli understand that every little skirmish for him is sign to get into a scrap. In his head, he loves to fight a good fight. When he perceives the world to be against him, Kohli is at his best. He has been in good form in the nets and the South African attack could be just the meal he would like to feast on.

I won’t talk about captaincy, selection publicly: Dravid

Centurion: India head coach Rahul Dravid has declined to reveal details of any internal conversations he might have had with the selectors on Test captain Virat Kohli’s white-ball captaincy, saying such conversations are not for public consumption. “To be honest, that’s the role of the selectors and I am not going to get into individual conversations that I might or might not have had,” Dravid said. “It’s not the place and the time to be doing that and discussing that. And what internal conversations I have had with people is certainly not going to come out in the media and I am not going to start telling people publicly what conversations I have had.”