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    Three-match ODI series against England will usher Team India into a Kohli era

    Synopsis

    Test cricket in comparison is directionless, meandering from one bilateral series to another. The ICC tournaments are where Kohli’s true impact will be felt, and his captaincy measured.

    ET Bureau
    By Chetan Narula

    The road to the 2019 World Cup begins in earnest on Sunday, when India take on England in the first of the three ODIs in Pune. It will also mark the build-up to the Champions Trophy this summer, albeit a short one, with only this series to play prior to that ICC tournament.

    New captain, new era
    “I wanted Virat to ease into the Test format and I was waiting for the right time. I feel this is the time,” said outgoing skipper MS Dhoni on Friday.

    It duly marks the onset of the Kohli era in Indian cricket. Sure, he is already heading the batting charts and leading with aplomb in the Test arena. But the real glory of international cricket lies in the shorter formats, where it can be defined by success in terms of World Cup and World T20 trophies collected.

    Test cricket in comparison is directionless, meandering from one bilateral series to another. The ICC tournaments are where Kohli’s true impact will be felt, and his captaincy measured.

    Where will Dhoni bat?
    For a better part of the last two years, the Indian team management has been trying to groom a finisher in place of Dhoni.

    By his own admission, the former captain ‘cannot hit from the word go’ and in the series against New Zealand, he even mentioned how he ‘needed to face a few deliveries to get going and rotate strike properly’.

    At 35, Dhoni is no longer the batsman he was three or four years ago. And for this very reason, one of the most crucial decisions for Kohli to ponder upon will be his predecessor’s batting slot.

    “I would like to see him bat up the order,” he had said upon Dhoni’s resignation. The highest Dhoni can be afforded a spot is no.4, and it worked like a charm on the couple occasions in the New Zealand series. But this matter is now complicated further with the inclusion of Yuvraj Singh.

    Yuvraj and the middle-order muddle
    The last time Yuvraj played ODI cricket was in December 2013, and he was dropped after the South Africa tour for poor form. The Indian selectors back then moved on, and he was never in contention for the 2015 ODI World Cup.

    Inexplicably, his recent good showing in Ranji Trophy (672 runs in 5 matches) impressed the current selection panel, leading to his recall. The Indian think tank has tried out different names in the finisher’s role — from Rishi Dhawan and Gurkeerat Mann in Australia to Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav and Hardik Pandya against the Black Caps.

    There was a certain degree of progress shown by the latter bunch in the home series, but atleast one of them is now expected to lose his spot to Yuvraj. Chief selector MSK Prasad, however, failed to mention if this is a short or long term solution, if at all, to India’s middle order mess.

    The opening conundrum
    The middle order isn’t the only topic seeking Kohli’s attention. A lack of poor form from the openers has also contributed to why the batting is now increasingly dependent on the star batsman, whether setting a target or chasing one.

    Rohit Sharma (123 runs in 5 matches) and Ajinkya Rahane (143 runs in 5 matches) were in poor form against New Zealand, especially the latter as he squandered the opportunity to cement an opening slot in Shikhar Dhawan’s absence.

    Dhawan hasn’t covered himself with glory either, failing against South Africa (126 runs in 5 matches) and then only scoring runs in Australia after the series was lost, both in 2015-16.

    KL Rahul has made giant leaps since then, and is now part of the first-choice ODI set-up. He will be paired with one of Dhawan and Rahane, while Rohit is recovering from injury. India thus now have four openers to choose from. Only three can go to the Champions Trophy.

    England’s odi revival
    From the embarrassment of the 2015 World Cup, captain Eoin Morgan and coach Trevor Bayliss have led a stunning revival for England in limited-overs cricket.

    Since then, they have only lost two out of seven ODI series, and have won in distinguished styled against New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

    With a core group of aggressive players such as Jason Roy, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow, they finished runners-up in the 2016 World T20, a surprising achievement.

    Winning on Indian soil though is a proper test of this newfound aggression in English ODI cricket. They last won a bilateral series here in 1984, and since 2002, have won only three matches in 15 years.

    In this interim, England have lost four successive ODI series here in India. Can they buck the trend this time around?


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