Nearly three years back, I had wondered who would be our batting mainstays. Virat Kohli, then was already exceptional in ODIs and establishing himself in tests.Pujara was having poor series away from South Asia.Finally, it apperas the duo of Koh;li and Pujara have established themselves and several series win at home and two away have cemented this.
Taking a look at overseas performance of India since1932, two distinct pattern seems to emerge.One between 1971-1982 and one between 1996-2008.During this period while India managed to do well in India, it was competitive abroad winning series in England, West Indies and Pakistan, often for the first time.Both these phases saw India having two very good batsmen, Gavaskar and Vishwanath in the first phase and Tendulkar and Dravid in the second.There was a decent support cast and good bowlers but the bulwark of two competent world class batsmen kept the team afloat.the decline of the second pair and now lacking any pair with similar capabilities, India finds itself in a situation where overseas visits often end with defeats and inconsistent performance.
There have been away series with bowlers led by Kapil Dev helping India make winning forays, home and away.There have been batsmen like Amarnath, Vengsarkar,Azharuddin and Sehwag who have shone and in Sehwag's case dazzled but the confidence the two pairs brought were unmatched.The present has Kohli, definitely the best ODI batsman today but who else?
