Intricacies rule Virat Kohli's world of run-making

The 27-year-old's keen eye for finer details of batting showed how far he's come as a player and perhaps, a glimpse of how far more he's destined to go. © Getty

On a harrowing night for batsmen at the Eden Gardens, Virat Kohli finished as the difference between the two sides as India extended their dominance over Pakistan in World Cups. That he's an excellent chaser of targets is well-documented but behind his consistency, lies his knack for attention to finer details of his nuance of the game that makes him so dangerous.
Over the last few years, Kohli has turned into a true modern-day champion, with bucket-loads of runs to show for and an ability to realign his mindset midway through an innings in order to come up trumps against almost every bowler he's faced.
Rewind to a couple of weeks ago. India were tottering at eight for 3 in the third over, the top-order made to look abject by Mohammad Amir's pace and swing on a green-top wicket. The 22-year-old, whose stunning return to the international scheme of things felt like he was never away, turned the screws. By Kohli's own admission, the 49 he scored in this chase was one of his better knocks. It wasn't just Kohli's acumen to take on the challenge and pose a counter to it, but also to be able to think on his feet and blunt the threat posed by Amir.
The left-arm pacer coupled his express pace with his ability to swing the ball into the right-handers and caused all sorts of trouble for the Indian batsmen. Rohit Sharma lasted two deliveries, Ajinkya Rahane wasn't sure of whether to go forward or hold back and Suresh Raina, a left-hander, was comprehensively bamboozled. Kohli walked out, faced a couple of deliveries and quickly opened up his stance to be able to deal better with the ball that swung into him. Kohli's move forced Amir to alter his plans, and therein lay the Indian batsman's genius.
Amir's excellent flow meant he still posed problems but Kohli did enough, despite getting a couple of outside edges, to arrest India's slide. In the 16 balls he faced off Amir, Kohli scored just 10, but in the process, also saw off a little over half of the four-over spell of Pakistan's most impactful bowler of that night in a small chase.

On a viciously-turning track, Virat Kohli's batting proved to be the difference between the two teams © Getty

An innate quality in the best of batsmen is to acknowledge their fallibility and head back to the drawing board to iron them out before the next opportunity arises. The constant urge to erase what looks like a blemish on an otherwise spotless canvas eggs them on, as evidenced by Kohli's reactions.
On an equally potent spin-track in Nagpur, Kohli had perished while trying to drive Ish Sodhi, the New Zealand leg spinner, away from his body. On revisiting his dismissal and the forward stride, Kohli seemed to have figured that staying on and playing late against the threat of Shahid Afridi's leg spin on Saturday would benefit him.
What started as a keen contest was swiftly bossed over by Kohli and his batting re-adjustments allowed him to play a lot more on the back foot and take his time to keep the vastly-turning ball away. On a wicket such as this, batsmen would escape the wrath of a coach even if they fell trying to slog their way out of trouble, but Kohli, as Shoaib Malik reckoned in the post-match press conference, backed his skill even in such adverse conditions and anchored the chase to perfection.
"Even when I am defending the ball, I want to have a big stride forward and show the bowler, 'I've defended it because you bowled a good ball. But if you bowl a bad one, I am here to hit you for a boundary," he had said back in July 2014. A year-and-a-half later, Afridi learnt it the hard way that not much has changed in the way Kohli played his cricket.
That the Pakistan talisman had to work with a negligible margin of error on a favourable track added to Kohli's brilliance. Kohli also reaped the rewards of showing extreme patience and resolve against short of a length deliveries, forcing Afridi to try the fuller approach. Once the deliveries were full, Kohli was able to reach the pitch of the ball and even dish out a couple of picture-perfect cover drives to ease the pressure of the chase, and leave Afridi out of options.
Against Shoaib Malik, the right-arm off-spinner, Kohli chose to step out of his comfort zone and use the sweep shot to nullify the impact of the turn. The move, as risky as it was, yielded instant results as he managed to throw Malik off his rhythm.
"People who've seen me closely, know that I don't play the sweep unless it turns square. But when the need of the hour is to play a sweep, you've got to be good at this level to play it, and if you can't, then people are going to target you there and you keep going down as a batsman. If you need to be ahead of the bowlers, you've got to play every shot in the book," he said in a post-match chat on Star Sports, reflecting his sublime game-reading skills and his ever-improving flexibility.
As his essay progressed, there was a growing feeling of whether Kohli was indeed batting on a different track. His tally of 29 from 20 balls off the two spinners combined, highlighted the vast difference between the batting efforts of the two sides on a wicket that hardly changed through the day.
"You know that famous example of half glass of water, whether it's half full or half empty, how do you see it? I feel his biggest plus point is he takes everything as a challenge," Dhoni summed up Kohli's current frame of mind on a night when the 27-year-old showed how far he's come as a batsman and perhaps, a glimpse of how much further he's bound to go.  source   cricbuzz