India leave England defeated but not discouraged ahead of Australian test

A remarkable, though ultimately unsuccessful, fightback at The Oval provided cause for optimism

On Tuesday morning, ahead of the final day’s play at The Oval, India’s captain Virat Kohli gathered his team round to give them a warning. The series was gone; with India 58-3 chasing a theoretical target of 464, the game was virtually gone as well. But Kohli wanted his troops to know they were playing for more than pride. They were playing for their places.

“How we react to the fifth day’s play is going to have determine a lot of what happens in the future,” he said. “For all of us. The game has a great way of pulling out what you’re feeling from the inside. But if you show the right attitude, then the game will pay you back.”

Kohli was adamant that India would not throw in the towel as many Indian sides had done in the past, and if he had to offer up the odd veiled threat in order to ensure it, then that was what he was going to do. And ultimately, the results bore him out. India may have lost by 118 runs, but not before giving Joe Root and England the most almighty fright.

Over the course of three thrilling hours, KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant thrashed the ball all over The Oval, putting on 204 in under 45 overs and hauling India to the cusp of an incredible heist. Root looked utterly bereft. Seven bowlers had been tried without success. At one point, India needed just 139 to win with five wickets left and 27 overs to get them in.

It wasn’t to be. Rahul was bowled for 149 by a magical delivery from Adil Rashid. Pant failed to pick the googly and skied a catch off the same bowler for 114, his maiden Test century. But in this astonishing counter-attack - from two players fighting for their futures - Kohli had seen what he had wanted. And as India now turn their attentions to the final leg of their epic 2018 travelling triumvirate - this winter’s four-Test tour of Australia - Kohli feels that even in defeat, India are getting closer.

This may seem a touch counter-intuitive after a 4-1 drubbing. But Kohli correctly pointed out that the series had hung on a few key moments, and if India had managed to seize those moments the result could have been radically different. “You have to be doing some things right to be a position where victories are possible for both sides,” he said. “We don’t see a massive, massive portion that we have to correct.”

Kohli's side ultimately failed on these shores (AP)

The team’s critics - and there are plenty of those, both at home and abroad - will doubtless seize on this defeat against a modest England side as evidence of India’s inadequacy in foreign conditions, an inadequacy exposed by South Africa’s seamers earlier this year. And with a short home series against the West Indies followed by their tour of Australia, a country where they have never won a Test series, their struggles against quality seam bowling are hardly the most encouraging omen for facing Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins on bouncy tracks.

For Kohli, on the other hand, the opposite was true. This series, he argued, had shown they could handle overseas conditions. Now, they needed the killer instinct. “We do not look at this series as something that makes us think we can't play in overseas conditions,” he said. “Of course we can play. But can we capitalise on the important moments better than the opposition? At the moment, no, we haven't done that.

“We’re definitely not happy with the way the series has gone. We understand why the series has gone the way it has. But the progress has been there. These kind of series show you the character of individuals. I see that as opportunity, not adversity. If you’re winning all the time, that gets swept under the carpet."

The theory is fine. The specifics, of course, will need some work. Kohli specifically mentioned the start of the series, where India were caught cold in a temperate August, with just one soft-pedalled warm-up game against Essex to prepare for their red-ball series.

“We need to start series well,” he said. “We can’t warm up into a series. We need to do all the things well to strike first.” In this, you can’t help but feel India’s hands are partly being tied by the avarice of their board, and their desperation to cram international cricket into every last crevice of the calendar. They will go into their toughest tour with just one three-day game against a Cricket Australia XI under their belts.

India's counter-attack offered much to build on (Getty)

But if India can hit the ground running, they may well find this their best chance of winning in Australia since the heyday of Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman in 2003-04. Four years ago, in a series dominated by the bat, they ran into the twin titans of Steve Smith and David Warner. With both men sandpapered out of the side for a while, and Tim Paine in charge of an inexperienced, transitional team, India must know the door is ajar.

Their seam attack is better than it was four years ago, with the emergence of Jasprit Bumrah giving them a different dimension. The return of Bhuvneshwar Kumar will aid them too. Rahul and Pant’s assurance in the face of England's bouncer barrage at The Oval, along with an encouraging debut from Hanuma Vihari, will give India’s batsmen confidence that they can withstand Australia’s pace assault.

Kohli was India's standout player once more (AFP/Getty Images)

But as ever, the bulk of the burden will rest on Kohli himself, who scored 692 runs in four matches on his last tour, and has if anything improved since then. Kohli will be sternly tested as a batsman but more so as a captain, especially when the runs are flowing, the crowds are well-lubricated, and half the battle is knowing when to sit in and when to chase the game. At the moment, Kohli is an inveterate chaser, skittishly impatient and desperate to make something - anything - happen.

He will have learned a lot on this tour, but perhaps the biggest lesson of all came on that final afternoon at The Oval, as he watched his side throw everything at a lost cause. Kohli had been out for a golden duck on the fourth evening, and in a way, India’s subsequent rally will have given him even greater pleasure as a result. When he failed, his team-mates picked up the slack. And if India are going to win in Australia for the first time in their history, then Kohli won’t be able to do it on his own.