Virat Kohli Caught in His Own Front-Foot Trap

Virat Kohli opened his account with a delicate single to fine-leg on what may be his final tour of Australia. It quickly became evident that the experienced former India captain had a strategy in mind, having been on numerous tours Down Under before.

It was a plan that had once been tailored for and worked against England. But this was Australia. The pitch was hard, the ball was zipping through and India had already lost two wickets with very little on the board.

Opener Yashasvi Jaiswal had been dismissed for a duck, trying to drive on the up. The shot would have been perfect in India but the conditions in Perth demanded a different approach. The edge flew to Nathan McSweeney at gully.

That should have given Kohli a clue to what he needed to do. But he chose to stick to his plan. He came out looking edgy, eager to put the pressure on the Aussies. Perhaps, he was too eager.

Standing out of his crease might make sense to negate the swing but in Perth, where you want to counter the bounce, it doesn’t look like a great idea. After a few deliveries that Kohli played off the front foot, Josh Hazlewood dug one in a little shorter.

Kohli, whose initial movement was again going forward, was taken by surprise. He lost his balance and ended up desperately fending. The ball took the edge and flew to Usman Khawaja at first slip.

You grow up listening to the greats taking about how Australia has always been a backfoot country. Play the horizontal shots, use the cut and the pull.

But to play those shots, you need to get your footwork right. Go back and then go forward. If your initial movement is forward, then you could get stuck like Kohli. The premeditated plonk of the front foot does not work. Let the ball come a little more and then play it right under your eye.

It didn’t help India that the Aussie bowlers dished out a masterclass in first session. They were remarkably consistent with the 7-8 metre length and gave nothing away. Devdutt Padikkal, for example, scored a 23-ball duck. KL Rahul took his time to get going as well.

And that was fine given that India had decided to bat. They needed to find a way to survive the first session and that would ordinarily mean batting time and leaving a lot of deliveries. But the Indian batters showed an eagerness to put bat on ball and paid the price.

Batting did get slightly easier later in the day but the visitors had lost far too many wickets by then. After that, it was a battle to get anything that remotely looked like a respectable total.

On the eve of the match, stand-in skipper Jasprit Bumrah had spoken about the need for self-belief. He was talking about the youngsters mostly but it applies to seniors as well.

“The message that I would give them is that I always believe in, you know, self-belief because everybody’s played a lot of cricket. So, if you believe that you know, you’re good enough, you can make an impact. Doesn’t matter if you’ve played 100 Test matches, (if) you’ve played 50 Test matches, it depends on what is going on inside you,” Bumrah had said.

At this point, Kohli probably has a few doubts. But the first Test could become a tight, low-scoring game and India would love nothing more than have Kohli learn his lessons and step up, for once, by going on the backfoot.