India vs Australia: Virat Kohli has established he's a great batsman, it's time for him to become a great leader

Greatness. So much of sport is concerned with it. The best of the best become legend. At the start of a career, the idea of being one of those that are discussed for generations to come is unlikely to be anything other than a distant dream. But as a career unfolds it begins to be discussed. People are dismissive at first, as if using the word “great” has some sort of limit. [caption id=“attachment_5558471” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File picture of Virat Kohli. PTI[/caption] For a batsman, there are a few things that need to be ticked off before greatness can be agreed upon by everyone. The weight of runs helps, but that isn’t enough. An average of over fifty helps, more than 20 hundreds is another element to gaining greatness. To get everyone to agree you need all of that and you have to score the runs everywhere around the world. If any player has a blip in their record against a certain opponent or in a particular country that is a mark against them. Slowly, with the truly remarkable players, the doubters start to disappear. There is nothing left to use against the batsman. And that is the point that Virat Kohli is fast approaching. In the past, his critics have said that he can’t be great until he has succeeded in England. Across the last English summer, he made 593 runs in five Tests with two hundreds and three fifties. Box ticked. Even the most myopic of supporters from other nations have to admit that Kohli is either already an all-time great or close to claiming that status as a batsman. The next challenge is for him as a leader. Over the last few years he has harnessed his more impetuous characteristics and led from the front, but he still has some way to go before he is universally considered a great tactician. Masterminding away wins is how he goes about doing that. The next away Test excursion for India is to Australia, another place where you have to score runs to have greatness thrust upon you. Going into that series Kohli has the chance to lead his team to victory in a Test series in that country to go with his already impressive record as a batsman. In his eight Tests in Australia he has scored 992 runs and made five hundreds. The fast and bouncy Australian pitches are just about perfect for Kohli and you can expect more of the same from him this series. But it will be as a leader that he will have his closest examination and there are few tougher places to tour. The Australian fans and media will not make you feel at home. But, in theory, this is a different Australian team that the Indians will be facing. A team that was called a “pack of dogs” by South African captain Faf du Plessis in 2014 are going through a culture change after all. David Warner, the alpha in that pack that Du Plessis described, will not be in the team. They are all about pre-match handshakes now. After South Africa’s recently concluded limited overs tour du Plessis had a different view. “They were tame, but if you go to Australia you can sense why. It’s difficult to explain the hurt that Australian cricket is going through if you’re not there. The public is angry at what happened and Cricket Australia has been firm in the sanctions they handed down.” More important than the absence of Warner’s bristling intensity will be the absence of his runs. With both his and Steve Smith’s bans meaning they won’t be in Australia’s team they are there for the taking. This is Kohli’s time to lead his side to victory in Australia, something no Asian team has ever managed. And this Australian team can be beaten. It is hard to think of a time in the last 30 years where they have been weaker. There are some serious question marks about so much of their batting line up and there is no one in the current team or in State cricket that can come close to filling the gaps left by Warner, Smith and even replacing Cameron Bancroft. India have a golden opportunity to win in Australia for the first time, and so much of that will come down to how they are led. In the England series, Kohli performed so well with the bat but things went wrong for the rest of the team. England were also there for the taking and India didn’t take the chance to win that series. Kohli too copped criticism for his selection, field placements and DRS decisions. He would be desperately looking to right those wrongs in this Australia series. This India team has so much talent, the question is whether they can turn that into results. A lot will depend on how Kohli goes about leading the team and how he pulls it all together. He is already great batsman, now is the time for him to become a great leader.