Kohli wants India to harness scoreboard pressure

In speaking about Cheteshwar Pujara’s strike rate, just after the Kanpur Test, Virat Kohli reminisced – sort of – of the days when Pujara used to score quick, dominating double-centuries against visiting spinners. That was at the tail-end of a time when India used to bury visiting teams under a mountain of runs and watch them crumble under the scoreboard pressure. India have won four of their last five Tests at home, but on pitches that weren’t typically Indian their batsmen have struggled. A plausible reason is that if it is extremely difficult for Hashim Amla to score on, it is going to be difficult for Pujara too, if not as difficult.

A win is a win, though, and India have been happy with them. Even on surfaces that turned from the first hour, there have been periods when India’s batsmen have threatened to dominate, but with so many variables to account for they weren’t able to follow through. Only one man has scored a century since the start of the last season – Ajinkya Rahane, twice and often lower-order runs from Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin proved the difference.

A day before the Kolkata Test, in conditions expected to help batsmen according to Kohli, the captain spoke about the need to put runs on the board.

“As a home side, we feel we are able to put big runs on the board, that obviously puts pressure on the opposition regardless of the wicket we are playing on,” Kohli said. “I felt that even in the last game we had a chance of getting 400-plus, but we didn’t capitalise. So those are the things we want to correct. Once you have a big score on the board, the …

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