Take it away: Gabba to Centurion, 2021 established India as the best touring Test team in the world

It isn’t perfect. It isn’t even close to being perfect just yet. But there is still no denying that this Indian men’s Test team is the best touring team in the world currently and perhaps the best Indian touring team ever.

India were very good in the 80s thanks to the solidity provided by Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar, and again in the 2000s when Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly joined Sachin Tendulkar’s party… but they were never this good at winning.

Those squads were built around batting riches and the odd great bowler (Kapil Dev, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan). But the way Virat Kohli wanted his team to do things was different. Rather than seek the safety net of an extra batter, he reckoned it would make more sense to simply blow the opposition away with the many great bowling options he now possesses. It was an aggressive approach; it could go wrong too but the essence of it was pure Kohli – a win at all costs mentality that didn’t mind the odd defeat.

After the big loss against England in the third Test earlier this year, Kohli was asked whether he would consider a sixth batter… something that Gavaskar had been…

Read more