India vs Australia | India feeds off Virat Kohli’s energy, says Brad Hogg

With a 146-run defeat to Australia at the Perth Stadium in the second Test of Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Indian team squandered away the one match lead they had gained at the Adelaide Oval in the first Test of the series. The result of the series now hangs in balance with a scoreline of 1-1 with two more matches to go.

“Virat Kohli is the energy of this Indian team. He is their clear leader and they feed off him. You just see him on the field - his athleticism is different and he expects that from the Indian team,” Hogg said to PTI.

Apart from the defeat at the Opus Stadium in Perth, Virat Kohli’s on-field behaviour too became a talking point in the media of both the countries with some criticizing the Indian skipper and some coming to his aid. 

“What he expects from the team, he does as well, so it is not as if he is telling the team what to do without leading from the front. He is actually leading from the front and asking his teammates to follow him,” he added.

Kohli scored 123 runs in the first innings of the second Test and received praise from the left-arm spinner, who praised Kohli by saying that the Indian skipper is a batsman on a different level to anyone else. 

“As a batsman too, Kohli is on a different level to anyone else. Perhaps only Usman Khawaja came close, that too in the second innings where he batted with a lot of composure,” said 47-year-old Hogg who played seven Tests between 1996 to 2008.

“But even then, they don’t have someone on the same level as Kohli. He is a different batsman to everybody else - he finds boundaries and rotates strike, and turns the momentum of the game at will,” he added.

India went in with an all-pace bowling attack in the Perth Test which Hogg thought might have been a good decision. He also explained that India did not lose the Test match because of wrong team selection but due to a good performance put in by the Australian openers on the Day 1 of the Test.

“As for Jadeja, he would have been spinning into a long left-handed Australian line-up so India probably had that point at the back of their mind. I suspect India might have made the right decision but it came down to the first hour on day one,” he opined.

“It was an enthralling Test match and India can be proud of how they fought. But the difference was in the opening partnerships. The way Marcus Harris and Aaron Finch added 112 runs, they made India chase the game from the first hour on day one,” he said. 

Hogg also assessed that the Indian bowlers missed out on picking the right length early in the Test match which ultimately made the Indian team play the second fiddle all throughout the match 

“Indian pacers couldn’t figure out line or length for the first two sessions and that’s where this game got away from them."