Posted by We’re not at all in Rubel Hossain territory here, but we’re pretty sure India just became a better Test team with Virat Kohli’s retirement. He was no longer the Test cricketer he once was. In fact he was essentially John Crawley. When it comes to middle-order batters, India can definitely do better than John Crawley.
Now Peak Kohli – he was pretty handy. Over a four-year period from the start of 2016, your man averaged 66.79 and scored 16 hundreds. Most of those tons came in India, but he also made them in Australia, England, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the West Indies in that period – every country in which he played a Test.
Since then, not so good. Crawley-esque, as we said.
Together with Rohit Sharma’s retirement, India undeniably just got a whole lot better. It’s not quite the same scenario as when Pakistan picked both Saleem Elahi and Mohammad Sami and consequently a de facto nine-man team, but we’re swimming in similar team selection waters. Over the last four years, these two titans of Indian cricket have averaged 33.72 (Rohit) and 32.22 (Kohli). Over the last 12 months that drops further to 22.47 (Kohli) and 10.93 (Rohit).
Viewed like that, India only need to find batters superior to John Emburey and Muttiah Muralitharan and they’ll have improved their side. We’re going to go out on a limb here and say India will be able to find a more competent batter than John Emburey. We also believe that having done so, their next best fella will possess more batting ability than Murali.
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From an ‘about to play a Test series against India’ point of view, my initial reaction was ‘ah, that’s a shame, I won’t get to see him play’, followed by ‘maybe a big loss to India’, followed by looking at his Cricinfo page, and then ‘ah, this will probably make India’s touring side better, won’t it?’
Actually that’s not entirely accurate – I also spent a fair bit of time wondering what this means for the likelihood of bumping into him outside what is relentlessly advertised as ‘Indian Cricket Team Captain Virat Kohli And His Wife Anuska Sharma’s Favourite Restaurant In Leeds’, where I had made a booking during a visit for the Headingley Test (following a recommendation from someone who has never been India Cricket Team Captain but did have a good meal there).