The genius that is AB or is it?

Abrahama Benjamin De Villiers, the 31-year-old South African is all set to play his 100th Test at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium at Bengaluru on the 14th of November 2015 vs India.

The man has been in phenomenal form in the last one year, scoring the fastest hundred off 31 balls vs the West Indies, scoring runs by the dozen during the ICC World Cup 2015.

Even in the recently concluded ODI and T20I series vs India, de Villiers has been in amazing form. HE scored 3 hundreds in 5 ODIs vs India.

He is the only batsman in ODIs to average over 50 with a strike-rate of 100+.

Am sure most of you'll have read about his multiple sports achievements, having played Rugby, Badminton, Tennis, Swimming and what not.

In short, this guy is a genius.

In cricket, as in any other sport, there always comes a time when an athlete goes through a purple patch. A time when he doesn't seem to do any thing wrong and reaches heights never thought achievable.

In cricket, they say you reach that time around your 30s. You tend to reach your maturity in every sense of the word and have a better understanding of your own game. That to me, seems like the case with a certain Mr. ABD.

There is no denying that the way he has been playing it looks impossible to stop him. But if you've been a die-had cricket fan you'd remember the same happening with Mathew Hayden when he had come to India in 1999, same happened with Graeme Smith, Alastair Cook, Saeed Anwar, Kumar Sangakkara, Sanath Jayasuriya...and the list is endless.

But we dare not mix these mortals with the genius that is a ABD or even a Sachin Tendulkar,

As much as I agree that the man is special and has a lot of time to play his shots and infact can play more than the shots in the book, I feel that he isn't all no-chinks-in-my-armour!

If you saw the first innings of the first Test at Mohali and saw de Villiers' batting, you will know what am talking about.

For the first few runs ABD was like fish out of water. Saying he was clueless would be an understatement. He had no clue how to play spin on a turning track. His go-to method has been to attack when not sure. Which works for someone as talented as him, but that too didn't seem to be working.

Put him in a spot against quality and you never know...ABD the genius or....

India lacks a crisis man. And it scares me.

India might be a power house of batting, we might have the Kohlis and the double-hundred Sharmas and the new-found-off-stump-line Ashwin. But what we don't have is a player who will fight it out in hard times.

I mean, every team has a crisis man. There used to be a time when you could name each player in a team who would be known for something like this...Eg. Virender Sehwag for India, Mahela Jayawardene for Sri Lanka, Moin Khan for Pakistan, Ian Healy for Australia, Jacques Kallis for South Africa. But that era seems to be gone.

Now when times are tough, teams tend to crack. Experts blame it on the T20 era. I think that's bullshit.

You need to be mentally tough and an amazing self-belief, which is not based on how the pitch is behaving or who is bowling at what speed!

Now, it looks like all teams are going through that phase when they just don't have an answer for it.

Ashwin at times has done for India with both bat and ball, Rahane too, but yet somehow they don't inspire the kind of confidence needed at such times.

Take the second T20 for instance, 67 for 5 quickly became 69 for 7. Three wickets in the space of  a  few deliveries.

Most teams of the early 2000s or even late 90s would have some player who would be ready to fight. Even Bhajji (Harbhajan Singh) would have done something. Not today, he just isn't in the right frame of mind. He knows it's over and he's just going through the motion, much similar to how Indian fielders would be when Australia would be 300/2 in a Test. You know the wickets won't come...they will have to hand it to you!

Anyway, coming back, what India lacks is a crisis man!

Unless we have a 200+ total in a T20 or a 350+ in an ODI, we are never sure if we will win.

Try to remember the last time we won a low-scoring game?? I can't think of any!!

That scares me...this generation is just not ready to fight it out, they want it all easy. There isn't one player who will lift the spirit of this entire team.

Even the commentators believed that a Ravi Shastri can motivate them!! And I was like...WTF!! Why do you need a 50-year old trying to ignite passion and tell you to get up and do something.

I would expect someone like a Kohli/Dhoni doing something like this. Saying stuff like, 'come on guys, let's get'em!!

That's not fair Steve

2nd Innings, 4th ball of the 26th over, England vs Australia, 1st ODI at Lord's.

The man on strike was England all-rounder Ben Stokes and the bowler running in was the tall lanky Australian pacer, Mitchell Starc.

This is what happened.

Now watch it again, what Ben Stokes did was more a spontaneous reaction trying to save himself.

Yes, replays do make it look like he made a conscious effort to avoid the ball hitting the stumps, but that's what action replays do. They are super slow. Watch it real time and it is obvious that what Stokes was doing was what most people would've done.

The ball was thrown from the wrong side for the right-handed Stokes and just because of the angle that Starc was throwing it from, to him it must've felt like it would go and hit him. It's only a little later does he realise that the ball will not hit him but was moving towards the stump.

His fault? Well, he was trying to save himself from any harm and since the time taken for the ball to reach him after it leaves Starc's hand is barely half a second, what he did was totally and completely an honest mistake.

I stand by Stokes and believe that he didn't do anything wrong and it was not fair on Australian Captain Steve Smith's part to have appealed for that.

Stokes has now joined an elite list of batsmen who have been dismissed by Law 37.

Player	Runs	Team	Opposition	Ground	Date
Rameez Raja	99	Pakistan	England	Karachi	Nov 20, 1987
Mohinder Amarnath	28	India	Sri Lankan	Ahmedabad	Oct 22,1089
Daryll Cullinan	46	South Africa	West Indies	Durban	Jan 27, 1999
Inzamam –ul-Haq	16	Pakistan	India	Peshwar	Feb 6, 2006
Mohammed Hafeez	0	Pakistan	South Africa	Durban	Mar 21, 2013
Anwar Ali	7	Pakistan	South Africa	Port Elizabeth	Nov 27, 2013
Ben Stokes	10	England	Australia	The Lord’s	Sept 5, 20

That was quick skipper!

Skipper Virat Kohli has been going on and on about his aggressive and fearless approach. How he is set to change the way things have gone on in Indian cricket. How he believes in a five-bowler theory, playing a positive brand of cricket and three major things he has been doing are:

1. Going for Rohit Sharma at no.3
2. Picking out and out pace bowlers over line & length accurate bowlers
3. Playing with 5 specialist bowlers

So, let's start with Rohit Sharna who the captain has been backing for the longest time.

Before the Sri Lakan series began, Virat had mentioned that he believes Rohit is the man for India at no.3. The guy who has the capability to change the game. One man who onces gets set can change the course of a game and can have a big impact.

The biggest reason for this is the fact that Rohit can shift gears almost at will. True. No doubt about that. After a gazillion chances in ODIs we have seen how double-century-Sharma can flay an attack and make it look like he's cutting butter! But, yes, the big but here is the fact that can we afford to let him play 7 years of Test cricket for him to start delivering.

The point here is that Virat had said that he's keen on Rohit playing for India at no.3 for a long time and the sole reason for Cheteshwar Pujara not being in the team is his inability to change gears. Well, that belief didn't last long now, did it?

Rohit has played not more than 5 innings and he's already lost his place to Ajinkya Rahane. Who may or may not hold on to this place for too long either, since I believe he is more capable to bat and more suited to bat at 5.

As much as I am all for Rohit being sent down the order at no. 5 or 6 I think the captain needs to put more weight to his words. He needs to standby decisions he makes and take flak for it if he really believes what he says.

There is no wrong in admitting your mistake and changing things to help the team. But then again, how can you judge a person's batting or skills at a certain position without giving him a fair run?

If that is how quick the decisions might be reversed then it will only send wrong signals to the players who fail even once or twice.

Varun Aaron is another case in point. Not that he bowled too badly,but he just could not get anything out of the pitch. No extra swing, no reverse swing and Kohli, who has been backing him since the Australia series quickly gave in for the all-over-the-place Umesh Yadav!

It's still the first day of the second Test and Yadav hasn't even got to bowl yet, but skipper, wasn't it you who said after the Bangladesh Test that Yadav is too inaccurate to be playing Tests. And what has he done since then to replace Varun Aaron, who, might not be as effective with the new ball but still showed some discipline.

How about picking Stuart Binny for a Harbhajan Singh? We all know how Binny isn't the best all-rounder in the country. At best, he can be counted as a batsman who can bat a bit. He has nothing to show for his bowling skills, still searching for his first wicket in Tests. A batsman who has managed one fifty, albeit a match-saving one. But wouldn't a Bhuvneshwar Kumar have been a better choice?

It would still mean India would go in with five bowlers. Things changed after just one loss?

Well, all I can say is that the long rope that certain cricketers enjoyed in the past thanks to MS Dhoni, might just have been cut short by the new man in-charge!

Pick favourites, but don't let India suffer

Going by Captain Virat Kohli's choices it's obvious that he is trying to pick his team. He is not the one to go by statistics or reputation.

Be it picking Karn Sharma just because he's a wrist spinner and they tend to do well in Australia or be it choosing a Rohit Sharma over Cheteshwar Pujara for the no. 3 slot. Just because he thinks Rohit can bat more aggressively than Pujara once he settles down.

Or even bringing back the Turbanator, Harbhajan Singh just cause he wants to go ahead with 5 bowlers and only 6 batsmen, which means he would need a bowler who can bat a bit.

Virat Kohli is choosing players that he think will make his strategy work. Nothing wrong in that, as a captain that is the best thing to do, because we live in a country where if the team is performing well no one will give the captain any credit, but when the team starts failing, all blame falls on the captain.

The biggest debate going on these days is about picking Rohit Sharma and giving him more opportunities. This time, its about giving him chances in Tests. Everyone knows how he was persisted with for the longest time in ODIs by MS Dhoni. He might have delivered eventually but someone who played for more than 7 years, scoring a few hundreds here and there just isn't enough.

Same is being done now with Rohit in Tests. Other than the first two hundreds against a hapless West Indies at home in 2013, Rohit has not been able to impress anyone with his batting. For a Test batsman, he just isn't tight with his technique and tends to give away his wicket so very easily. This especially is a major flaw for a batsman coming in at no.3 when the team could be in trouble and needs a batsman with a solid technique and someone who can fight it out there. Rohit Sharma is the last batsman you want in such a situation. It might be an exaggeration, but, I'd rather send in Ishant Sharma who puts a price on his wicket in place of Rohit. A Sharma for a Sharma!

A simple advice to our captain, pick your favourites, but please make sure India doesn't suffer!

Is Virat Kohli too one-dimensional a Captain?

'I know only one way of playing and that's being aggressive' - Virat Kohli to Rahul Dravid after the 1st Test at Adelaide in December 2014.

In his first Test as captain against the mighty Aussies, Virat Kohli showed the world that his style of captaincy will be to go all-out attacking.

It's pace, pace and more pace. He picked Varun Aaron, Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma in the team and handed the non-turning leg-spinner Karn Sharma a Test debut after a handful of first-class games.

Kohli has been known to openly back his fast bowlers no matter what the outcome. Because, unlike MS Dhoni, Kohli believes in action more than the 'process'.

His bowlers, namely Aaron and Yadav were wayward to say the least. Yadav managing an economy of 4.62 throughout the series and the Jharhand born Aaron giving away 5.64 runs per over.

The run-making apart, the two of them combined managed to pick up all of 16 wickets in 10 innings.
Mohammed Shami did manage to stand out with 15 wickets in the series, most by an Indian but that just isn't good enough.

So why the question of Virat Kohli being one-dimensional. Well, the first Test at Adelaide when Kohli lost the toss, the Australians did not come all-out blazing and yet managed to get their 50 by the 8th over.

Kohli was constantly changing the field, moving his fielders up and down. But, it was his fast bowlers who just did not do justice to the captain's field settings.

Australia did not even have to try hard to wrest the initiative in their favour, Aaron and Shami were doing that for them.

Surprisingly, it took Ishant Sharma to bring some sanity to the arena and get India it's first breakthrough.

Yes, it was Kohli's first day at the office and he has a long way to go.

So let's talk about his latest assignment - The Bangladesh Test.

He again decided to go for pace on a pitch and country that usually favours the spinners.

India again went with 3 pacers - Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron. Of the 10 wickets that fell in the first innings, 8 went to the spinners. A Test that was marred by rain, the pitch still managed to give enough turn and bounce.

What was surprising is that Kohli was on the attack and at one point the Bangladesh top-order scoring at a run-rate of over 4.5.

Everytime a team has attacked Indian bowlers, the captain has not shown a second gear. He doesn't seem to try and think of playing defensive for a little while. Try and play the waiting game, if I may.

The same applies to the team when batting. The move to pick Rohit Sharma over a Cheteshwar Pujara seems to validate this fact. Pick a more attacking batsman over one who likes to grind and take his time.

As much as this move might make sense in the sub-continent where runs are easy to come by and where the ball doesn't move too much for a batsman to have a real solid technique but this is definitely not the long term route.

Also, there will be times in the future when the team will need to save a match. Where you will need a batsman to score a 70 off 240 deliveries and where a 70 off 78 balls will not help.

Is there any batsman in the current line-up who can claim to do so? Barring a Murali Vijay?

Is there any bowler who can concentrate on line and length and keep teasing the batsman outside the corridor of uncertainty?

Is Kohli a one-dimensional cricketer who really only knows how to attack and can never take a step back?

I hope to get my answers in the near future as India play hosts to the Sri Lankans and the Proteas in the coming months.

A lot of these situations might be faced again, a lot of these questions might get answered soon!