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If there’s anything worse than bowling your way through Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman in a Test match, it’s realising that the game’s brightest young star is due in next.
Virat Kohli will bat at No.6 for India in the Melbourne Test, but the supremely talented 23-year-old has higher honours awaiting him in the future.
After captaining his country to an under 19s World Cup win in 2008, Kohli is being seriously spoken about as a Test skipper down the track.
When his legendary team-mates step away from the international team one by one, Kohli is the man to come in and anchor the top order.
He’s just four Tests into his career, but two half centuries against the West Indies were a sign of things to come.
Kohli has been the star so far for India in their warm-up match against a Chairman’s XI match in Canberra, his 132 from 171 balls on day two batting at No.4 was pure class and an ominous warning for Australia.
“It was good to get a knock out there. Especially going up the order was much better,” said Kohli.
“Going in pretty early when the ball was reasonably new was a help. When the ball gets old on this kind of wicket, it becomes batting paradise.”
Another danger man for Australia this series will be young spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who took 4-52 against the Chairman’s XI to restrict them to 7-215 at stumps of day two.
The offspinner has 22 wickets from just three Tests at an average of 22.90 and has been described by his Chennai IPL teammate Michael Hussey as genuine threat.
“I didn’t know about it (Hussey’s comment). (I’m) just going to go and attack the stumps for the left-hander and attack outside off stump for the right-hander,” he said.
“That’s what I am trying to do, try to spin and look for more bounce.”
Key pace weapon Zaheer Khan (0-41 from 10) didn’t get out of first gear in his first hit out since returning from injury problems on Tuesday in Canberra, while Indian officials say Ishant Sharma is progressing well to recover for the MCG Test.
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