Specsavers' second England-India Test, 2018: Five Reasons why India lost

#5. The biggest of all reasons; Virat Kohli

Either be a silent spectator...

Being the biggest fan of Virat Kohli since his under-19 days (that was in 2007), it hurts me a lot to do this. This why I put it off as the last reason - I was hoping to come up with a good reason so that I may not write this, but no matter how much I racked my brains, nothing else seemed to fill up this spot.

Virat Kohli right now is the team's biggest boon - and also the biggest curse. We saw how the boon-thing worked in the first Test at Edgbaston, where his fighting 149 in the first inning and a gritty 51 in the second, almost gave the contingent a ray of sunshine to look up to. But immediately after his dismissal, came the curse-part.

When Kohli faill, India fail.

...Or hide from the suffering, under a smile

The same thing repeated in the Lord's game. It is quite funny that he is a No.4 batsman, and yet has to come to play before even the eighth over draws to a close. He may as well be an opener, if that's the case, well why not.

Across several instances, it looked like his teammates shared the same thought as the rest of India: "It's okay, even if everyone else fails, he will not. And he will deliver us" - maybe that's the reason why nobody else seemed to be able to do literally anything to try and save even a Test session, let alone an entire day's play or even an entire game.

Also, India's star batsman's captaincy has rarely been of any good level. In the games that India wins, Virat himself does way too much for the end result, and so any assessment on his captaincy is left redundant. But when it comes to games where he fails (and the side subsequently loses), his captaincy can be seen leaving a gaping hole right there in the middle.

Take, for instance, the idea of choosing Rahul over Dhawan in opening. Time and again, the southpaw has shown his ability in English conditions, while Rahul is, in comparison, a newborn baby. It is indeed true that Dhawan got out to cheap shots in the Edgbaston game, but so did Rahul. Still, for some reason, he chose to go with the baby even when he had a more experienced man at his disposal.

Similarly, the decision to include Kuldeep over Umesh Yadav. With an entire day's play ruled out, and with the pitch no longer dry, just Ashwin himself as a spinner was a luxury. The seaming track would have helped a pacer much more, and yet Kohli opted for the second spinner in Kuldeep, who in turn went wicket-less and expensive at the same time.

With the English pacers reaping all of India's 20 wickets across just 82.2 overs, I don't think there's a need for bigger proof as to why Kuldeep's pick was a totally blind move.

A combined over-confidence of the team on Kohli's supposed super-human abilities and Kohli's own uncalled-for decisions have thus cost India yet another game.

Three tests remain in the series, and India needs to win all three to win the contest. Too much of a far cry. Hopefully, the visitors will learn something from this harrowing loss, and at least try to save the series at best, if not win it.