"Two days of good cricket and we let it go in one hour."
The last word was almost a whisper. His eyes, usually fixed on the interviewer, asking them to engage, were losing balance. His body language was submissive. For a second, he fumbled for words. Virat Kohli doesn't always sound like this.
But he has once. On 9th July 2019, facing an interviewer as the losing captain in a World Cup semi-final; and that same afternoon, in the post-match press conference, facing an entire room of journalists. His words were similar - half an hour of madness.
Just like that semi-final, India lost this Test match because of their batting. But scorecards like 5/3 and 36/9 cannot be pinned on one batsman alone, even if he is the talisman. He failed at Manchester last year, but his first innings on Thursday was amongst his best for control. Genius comes with a certain burden, but all cricketers fail more than they succeed.
His words, which may have come out in exasperation and shock - I hope they have - bear a more worrying demeanour than the "madness" of one hour.
India failing to handle the best of Australian fast bowling wasn't down to an hour of madness. Most importantly, because the batsmen hadn't played mad shots. Instead, they couldn't cope with two world-class fast bowlers at the peak of their powers, doing unusual things with an unusual ball. On a luckier day, they would have had a better scorecard, but the collapse would worry them regardless.
A bit about the two cyborgs Australia have created. You cannot be bowling at the speed of Cummins and Hazlewood and still be as accurate as they were. It bordered on the surreal, but the absurdity of the Indian scorecard will overshadow just how good those two were. They got the pink ball to talk just enough to trouble the bat, but not too much to bully the batsmen. The outside edge became the proverbial off-stump.
Fast bowlers take a special pleasure in beating the bat. On another day, the deliveries to Pujara, Agarwal, and Rahane would beat them and lay seeds of doubt. Today, Cummins and Hazlewood didn't give them the time to process their doubts. In the Sony commentary box, Glenn McGrath, the doyen of good-length bowling, was gushing. After one Hazlewood over, he just blurted out - "It can't get better than this."
Kohli leaves for India soon. One can only hope that, in the days leading up to his flight, there are enough influential people in the dressing room walking away from the hour and madness narrative. Instead, it was a period of play where India's batting showed, once again, that it is prone to such collapses.
Against sustained good bowling, this batting lineup has a streak of vulnerability. It won't always break, but it can. That should be worrying enough. Akash Chopra made a valid point on ESPN Cricinfo - "Back in the day, there were collapses, but at least one batsman from the order would bail us out more often than not."
These collapses are coming a bit too frequently. Among the four innings on the New Zealand tour early this year, India were bundled for less than 200 on three. On their last tour to Australia, they were 106/8 in the second innings at Melbourne. At Lord's in 2018, India finished the two innings on 107 and 130 respectively. That's a few too many "hours of madness".
Kohli is a good Test captain and this is a bloody good Test team. They showed as much on Day 2, when he led aggressively and proactively to limit Australia to 193 on a non-demonish pitch. As a batsman, Kohli’s average as Test captain is far beyond what most can manage. Unfortunately, he won't get the chance to lift his team up from the pits of Adelaide, but he will get one to show that he recognises the problems, unlike what his words suggest.
Kohli will also get the chance to evaluate if the backroom staff he currently has is good enough to rectify those problems. A lot of people are good cricketers on a sunny day, but this team are prone to losing their footing when it rains. There is a lot of grit and bite in this group, but also some chinks that need to be ironed out to enable sustained success. Kohli may need someone influential in the dressing room who can hold a mirror to the team.
India will probably beat England in January next year, but their chances of defeating England in August lie on a much-needed introspection. If they choose to believe that today was one bad day, then James Anderson and Stuart Broad can chug an extra drink on Christmas because they will have an early one next year.