Why Virat Kohli Has Been an Unlucky Captain Despite Scoring Centuries

Galle:Virat Kohli has had a strange ride as India’s new Test captain. The team has not won any of the four matches under Kohli. This is even more appalling as these matches also involved a considerably weakened Australia, minnows Bangladesh and a below-par Sri Lanka. However, no one can accuse Kohli of right failure – he has scored four hundreds in the course of these Test matches.
Kohli is in august company too. Only Sunil Gavaskar and Alastair Cook had scored four hundreds in their first four Tests as captains. But while Gavaskar had one win and three draws to his credit, Cook won three of those matches.
Kohli’s tale though is a whole lot different.
The latest of his efforts was a gutsy 103 in Galle against Sri Lanka’s wily spinners, which India ‘somehow managed’ to lose by 63 runs despite taking a massive 192-run lead in the first innings. It was Kohli’s marathon stand with Shikhar Dhawan that had helped India build on Ravichandran Ashwin’s six-for and for at least three days, it looked like the young captain would pocket his maiden Test victory. But it was not to be.
Chasing a tricky 176 on a turning pitch, Kohli and the other batsmen disappointed bitterly, managing to ‘snatch defeat from the cusp of victory’. The match was lost within half of the fourth day.
Kohli had started off his captaincy tenure on a dream note, slamming two hundreds in Adelaide. But after flattering to deceive, India went down by 48 runs in a tense chase. He followed that up with a classy 147 in a high-scoring draw in Sydney. The dynamic Delhi batsman then flopped, scoring 14 in the one-off, rain-truncated Test against Bangladesh in Fatullah earlier in the year.
Four Test matches is not a fair time to judge a captain’s credentials. But several questions have now started to be asked. Kohli and team director Ravi Shastri keep talking of aggression and the right attitude but the results have been depressing. It is worth mentioning here that both the Tests lost (Adelaide and Galle) could have gone either way. India were chasing 363 at the Adelaide Oval and came rather close, thanks solely to Kohli’s “aggression.”
The drawn game in Sydney was largely owing to the flat pitch – India responded with 475 to Australia’s 572/7 declared before the hosts decided to set India a challenging target without enough time to bowl out a reasonably confident batting line-up on a belter.
The Fatullah Test could well have been Kohli’s maiden win as captain but the truant weather played spoilsport and the players ended up spending more time in their hotel and dressing-rooms.
In Galle, had at least two batsmen applied themselves more, India would have been 1-0 up in the three-match series.
The two drawn matches were more or less beyond India’s control but the two defeats will rankle. The team got close or at least dominated for significant patches. Is Kohli then really unlucky as a skipper despite his impeccable credentials as a batsman? Former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar slammed the team management’s emphasis on “aggression and attitude” and asked them to focus on winning matches. Is aggression coming at the cost of result?
Kohli said after the Galle defeat that his team played fearlessly, just the way he likes to approach his game but admitted they were also a little tentative. But he is only 26 and Kohli likes to look ahead. “I think all the players are disappointed by the way we batted, as batting has been our strength in the past few months. There are no excuses and there is lot to learn from the loss,” he said after the loss on Saturday.