In Stats: Virat Kohli’s Unbeaten Streak & Ashwin’s Highs

Virat Kohli was named man of the match in his 50th Test.

Virat Kohli maintained his undefeated run as Indian captain at home after Team India defeated the visiting England side in the second Test match played at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam. England’s defeat by 246 runs was the biggest margin by which they had lost a Test match in the subcontinent.

The win meant India took a one-nil lead in the five Test series. India are now unbeaten in their last 16 Test matches.

At the start of the final day’s play, any of the four results was a possibility – though an Indian win was the most likely given the tourists lost their captain and their most dependable batsman Alastair Cook at the fag end of the fourth day’s play. However what unfolded on the final day must have been beyond the imaginations of even die-hard Indian supporters.

Just like what happened in Dhaka not too long ago, England collapsed yet again, this time losing eight wickets for 71 runs to be bowled out for 158. England’s collapse was of alarming proportions; while their opening pair of Cook & Haseeb Hameed lasted 50.2 overs, the rest of the batting line up crumbled in just 47.1 overs. England were bowled out for 158 – their second-lowest total in Test matches in India.

This is stating the obvious, but Virat Kohli is batting like he is in a different league altogether. What separates Virat from the rest of the batsmen currently is his consistency, the intent which he shows through his body language, the ability to score runs when and where he wants, and the hunger to score runs every time he gets to the middle.

Doing the same thing over and over again can become uninteresting, but not to Virat – who has repeatedly admitted that the secret to his success is doing the boring things time and time again. And that explains his mind-blowing aggregate of 3,250 runs across all formats of the game in 2016.

Since becoming captain of the Indian team, Virat has scored more runs than any other player in the team; his aggregate of 1,344 runs is 149 runs more than the second-highest run-getter. In fact, in the 17 Test matches he has been captain, Kohli has led from the front, being the team’s top-scorer on 8 occasions – more than any other batsman.

Virat’s 167 & 81 in Visakhapatnam earned him only his third Man of the Match award in Test matches. He now averages 107.83 in five international matches at Visakhapatnam.

What the Vizag Test match also told us was that while the England spinners are no doubt good, they aren’t as good as the Indian spinners.

Figure this; in the first Test in Rajkot, England – despite scoring 537 runs in the first innings – allowed India to score 488 runs in their first innings. Even allowing for the fact that the pitch in Vizag was vastly different to the one in Rajkot – which it was not – India bundled out the tourists for 255 after scoring 455 batting first.

This establishes the mediocrity of England’s spin attack and the supreme quality of the Indian spin attack. With runs on the board, spinners are expected to run through sides. And the trio of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Jayant Yadav did just that.

On a pitch that certainly offered them assistance, the Indian spin trio bowled a number of overs, kept plugging away at areas where the batsmen found it difficult to negotiate them, bowled several maiden overs to sustain pressure, and eventually caused the batsmen to do something out of their comfort zones. It was top-notch stuff from the Indian spinners.

Like Virat Kohli in the batting department, Ashwin has been relentless in the bowling department. Ashwin bagging six five-wicket hauls – and a total of 55 wickets – in nine Test matches so far this year speaks volumes about his consistency.

Ashwin is the highest wicket-taker in Test matches this year. If he continues his form in the rest of series, he is poised to break Kapil Dev’s record of 75 wickets, which is the most taken by an Indian bowler in a year.