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England's game against India on Sunday in the World Twenty20 has no immediate import. Both countries have already qualified for the next stage of this tournament, or 'the Super Eight', as a result of beating up Afghanistan.
What makes today's match interesting is that England will have a close-up of the player well on course to become the next great batsman of world cricket. With the era of Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar passing away, nobody had appeared on the stage to take their place - until the arrival of Virat Kohli.
Kohli, at 23, has already won two World Cups. He captained India to the Under-19 World Cup, then went off the rails after signing an Indian Premier League contract that was far too big for one so young. Yet he came back to win the World Cup with India last year, and has kept maturing, so that when England make their four-Test tour of India later this autumn, Kohli will be the main batting threat.
He will not match Tendulkar for numbers - nobody will - but Kohli has the urge to dominate, in addition to the orthodox technique of the Indian masters. He is a child of his age, brought up in Delhi to be cosmopolitan, gelling his hair, ambitious to live in the fast lane, and blending very successfully so far the virtues of ancient and modern cricket.
Headline writers in India are already tempted to call him the one-day Bradman. In 87 innings in the 50-over format, he has scored 13 centuries - more than any England player, more than their whole team that played in their last international could claim - and at a strike-rate of 86, close to a run a ball. In his last nine one-day internationals, Kohli has made five hundreds.
But he isn't just a brash whizz-kid, like one or even two members of this Indian side which have come to Sri Lanka as favourites to win the World Twenty20 - but which has already revealed an alarming lack of pace bowling, which England could exploit today both in the opening overs and at the end of their innings.
Duncan Fletcher, now India's coach, recalls that the most strenuous fielding practice he has ever organised did not come when he was England's coach, or a consultant to South Africa. It came on India's tour of England last year, after the team had fallen apart in the Test series, losing 4-0.
Kohli came into the squad for the subsequent one-day series, and he was so keen to request fielding drills that the session at Chester-le-Street was the longest and most demanding Fletcher had ever conducted, surpassing anything even Paul Collingwood had done.
So the image of Indian fielding needs updating, thanks largely to Kohli.
The maharaja used to let somebody else run after the ball, and plenty of their batsmen have been loftier than maharajas in delegating this duty to servants. But sprinklers are installed in India's new stadiums, diving has become cool, and Kohli is not content with being a big, slow, fish in the Indian pond.
Another indication that England will have to deal with a champion, both today and on their Test tour of India, is the way Kohli reacted in Australia last winter. India were bombed out, much as West Indies were in 1975-6. One man decided he had copped enough verbal abuse and short-pitched bowling. The West Indian back then was Viv Richards. The Indian last winter was Kohli.
After two Tests of being bounced out by short balls and intensely frustrated with the abuse from spectators while fielding on the boundary, Kohli worked out his way to fight back. He would have top-scored in India's last four innings if he hadn't been run out in the fourth. While everyone's eyes were on Tendulkar, and whether he could make his 100th international hundred, Kohli scored 44 out of 161 and 75 out of 171 when India were blasted away by an innings in Perth, then 116 in Adelaide, the visitors' only century of the series.
Stuart Broad can be expected to target Kohli with an early bouncer under the lights of the Premadasa. Broad not only leads England but bowls the most precisely targeted bouncer; and Kohli's response, whatever it may be, will nicely set up the Test series.
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After beating South Africa amid the showers at Edgbaston, and Pakistan and Australia in warm-ups in Colombo, and Afghanistan on Friday night, England have built up a head of steam. The title defenders have a young team - only Graeme Swann is over 30 or anywhere near - and their fielding against Afghanistan was faultless apart from the customary fumble by Samit Patel.
To underline the increasing importance of the young players, Jos Buttler, 21, was given an incremental contract by the England and Wales Cricket Board yesterday having qualified through playing nine T20 internationals and one one-day international in the contract year.
But no opponent has yet fully probed England's Achilles' heel post-Pietersen: the hesitant way their batsmen start an innings against spin (and even Afghanistan bowled six overs of spin in mid-innings for only 28 runs). Fletcher might just play the ace today, starting off with Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh or Ravi Ashwin. Or else keep it back in case India come up against England in the semi-finals.
Edited By Cen Fox Post Team
