Kohli, the Man Who Makes Things Happen

Sport in general is moving towards a culture which despises defensive attributes.Cricket is no different. In a nut-shell, the India-Sri Lanka series will be a clash between two teams struggling to NEGOTIATE THEIR SPACE in the broader cricketing universe. But there is a thin line between bravado and foolhardiness, defensiveness and pragmatism.Only the best can draw the line.

- N.Sudarshan

Transitions in sport are always dicey affairs. No athlete's’s or team’s ca-reer is a smooth curve from the beginning to the end. As much as an athlete or a team, when asked how his or her or the team’s development has shaped up over the years, tends to describe it in terms of specific moments of glory, the stories that lie between those moments and how those phases are managed is vital.

AN ATHLETE OR A TEAM can look jaded, get trapped in troughs or sink into the abyss. The transition upward from each of these situations is perhaps the biggest of challenges. In recent years, the Indian cricket team has had plenty of exposure to such scenarios. The World Cup win in 2011 was followed by whitewashes in England and Australia. In the days after the Champions Trophy win in 2013, India has lost four of the five Test series it has played.

HOWEVER, IN THE PRESENT era that we are in, teams are forever in transition. Careers are short, longevity is at a premium. As a result, teams seem to be in a rebuild mode all the time. Before the end seems nigh a new process is kickstarted. Definitive markers are tough to come by. Every format bleeds into the other. Every series bleeds into the other.

Yet, when India takes on Sri Lanka in a three-Test series those very markers of transition which are otherwise tough to spot, stand up stark. It will be Virat Kohli’s first full-fledged series as India’s Test captain, signalling the end of the M. S. Dhoni era. For Sri Lanka, the period after the second Test will be its first brush with the post Kumar Sangakkara era.