Will Kohli & Co be crowned as the best Indian Away Team?

India test Team (Image - ICC/Twitter)

Jan.11 (CRICKETNMORE) - Over the years, manycricket experts have labelled India “flat-track bullies” for failing to carry over their home form to their away travails. Almost every tour of Australia undertaken by India is emblematic of this particular trend.

However, it seems that Virat Kohli’s men have managed to buck this trend and are on their way to seal the test series 3-1 as Australia trail by 316 runs on the last day of the test after India’s batsmen impressed, putting up a score of 622 in the first innings before declaring it and giving the Aussie batsmen a sizeable task at hand. Leo Sportsbook India takes a brief look into what makes this series so special and worth deliberating upon.

Virat Kohli equals Sourav Ganguly’s record for most test series wins overseas as Indian test captain

Virat Kohli has his critics, that’s for sure. For months, people have been latching onto things ranging from his form to the way he talks in the media to his influence in the politics of selection. It is quite amusing when one reads tabloid reports written by folks who could only be deemed conspiracy theorists of sorts despite vouching for their sources, talking about Kohli’s attitude and his views/biases pertaining to each and every player. Sure, Kohli’s decision-making is by no means perfect and at times quite flawed but given our current standing in the grand scheme of rankings in both Test and ODIs, he hasn’t exactly done a shabby job and it suggests that he probably gets it right more often than he gets wrong.

Amongst those who are heavily sceptical of Kohli’s ability to captain the team, there are people who simply draw their perspective on things from a sense of nostalgia. Admittedly, a lot of us like to hearken back from time to time to the flawed yet incredibly gripping era of Ganguly. Besides the fact that this was the era when we had a truly great set of batsmen in their prime (Tendulkar, Laxman, Dravid, Sehwag and Ganguly itself), it was definitely a time that had its own charm. It wasn’t perfect, and India would suffer some or the other debacle that would set people railing against Ganguly, who is now remembered as an icon and someone who really gave it as good as he got to the Aussies back when they were behemoths in their own right. We often came up short, but seldom did we ever come out of matches feeling like we didn’t give it a go. When Ganguly’s reign came to an end, it marked the end of an era which saw him being one of the most prolific winners on overseas pitches, bagging 11 away test wins in 28 tests under his captaincy.

All in all, Ganguly’s era was quite a memorable one and not bereft of any feats or its own sweet moments. However, it seems Kohli is already on his way to eclipsing his work, having equalled his record and given that he doesn’t seem to be wilting away any time soon and probably has more longevity to him in comparison to the legendary southpaw, the skies are the limit for him as things stand. He’s very much at the top of his game, being India’s bonafide superstar and its best batsman. Without Kohli, the otherwise tempestuous batting lineup collapses and never really gets going. India has probably never had such a large pool of talented batsmen to choose from, yet very few really manage to step up and Kohli has to take the bull by its horns to bring order to the chaos. There’s very little doubt as to his status as one of the best batsmen in the world and his leadership ability.

People might dispute the degree of challenge both captains faced and extoll virtues of either exhibited or have exhibited in their respective tenures as captain but from a strictly fact-centric perspective, Kohli and Ganguly are equal at the crafts of leadership, none being worse or better than the other albeit their captaincy style and tactical nuance and feel might differ from one another.

What’s next from Kohli and co.?

The incoming slew of cricket coming the team’s way shall determine how much confidence they’ve taken from their exploits in Australia and whether Kohli can instil his seamless energy into his side, propelling them to a level which enables them to go strength by strength. It is quite possible though that fatigue may take over and the performances might dwindle as they do in this era of constant, demanding cricket (the team is playing more cricket than ever) but signs are that Kohli is pretty much the right man for the job and his immediate focus would be the ODI series against Australia that’ll follow the commencement of this eventful, promising test series.