Partner/Ehemann » ming to New Zealand to play the All Blacks,

There are 19,400 voices in the stands. A majority of them shout Kohli Kohli as Adil Rashid bounds in. Sound doesnt escape the Wankhede Stadium because the stands are almost vertical. Virat Kohli is on 98. He has stopped celebrating hundreds of late. Says they are nothing special and that he needs to make sure hundreds dont satisfy him. Job not done. You wonder if he will make an exception this time. This is a pitch where the ball has been turning square. Turning square and bouncing. Turning square and turning fast. This is a pitch on which India have conceded 400.Rashid pitches too full, Kohli works it into the vast open spaces on the leg side, and hares off immediately. The crowd leaves the seats. Kohli sees Jos Buttler running in from deep backward square leg, and settles for one. You still wonder if this hundred is more special to him than Indore or Visakhapatnam. You have to wait for the next over when the Kohli Kohli will resume.The chant began in the morning. After the second ball of the morning when Cheteshwar Pujara was bowled shouldering arms. This is the ground whose favourite son started the trend of Indian stands cheering the fall of the second wicket. Three years since that man retired, that pedestal has been occupied by Kohli. Pujara had barely walked half his way back when the chant began.India were still 254 behind. A hundred here couldnt ensure India a win in the Test - they have to bat last - but a failure could lose it for them: there was no Ajinkya Rahane to follow him; Karun Nair, playing his second Test, was one of the five specialist batsmen in the side; and - good as it might have been - the lower order couldnt be left with too much to do on this pitch.Kohli fed the frenzy as he nicely guided the 10th, 12th and the 16th ball he faced for fours, not through the cover drive but through a steer. England wanted him to cover-drive, bowling outside off with two slips and a strong cover field. This is how the quicks have been testing his patience. Kohli has shown patience all series long. He showed it here too but whenever Jake Ball pitched slightly short, Kohli opened the face and had those three boundaries without having to go looking for runs.Kohli had reached 15 off 27 when his partner M Vijay drove into a big gap in the covers. Vijay is 32 years old, he had a dodgy back coming into the series, he is more in the Cheteshwar Pujara league of runners, but he touched down for a second and set off for a third. Kohli, though, already had his hand up because Vijay would have struggled to make it. Two balls later, Vijay looks to go hard to convert one to two, but Kohli lets him know when crossing him that one is okay. Some time ago, Kohli would have become agitated at a run missed. Now he runs at his partners pace. Partners he had dropped in the West Indies in favour of more attacking batsmen. Now they adjust a little, and Kohli adjusts a little in return.This has been the year of Kohlis adjustment in an attempt to become a complete batsman. In Kanpur, after India had taken a first-innings lead against New Zealand, Kohli fell trying to hit a spinner in the air as he looked to dominate. He has stopped hitting them in the air since. A batsman who scored 973 runs in the IPL this year vowing not to hit spinners in Tests. Not when he is playing only five batsmen in a bid to push for results. This is a batsman at complete peace with his game.Kohli is an excellent frontrunner, but there wasnt much frontrunning to do here with a long way to go to parity. So he dug in. He applauded some attractive strikes from Vijay - as he does every now and then for release - but he kept waiting for the loose ball. As Parthiv Patel said at the end of day two, the loose ball kept arriving every now and then. He played 111 balls to reach his half-century, respecting the match situation, the pitch and his team composition. He spent 46 balls in the 40s. Surely he considers a 46-ball hundred slow in T20s?Sure enough the loose balls arrived, but there were also the likes of the 85th he faced. A sharp spitting legbreak. Turning. Bouncing. Turning and bouncing fast. Kohli didnt follow such balls with his hands. If there was his name on that ball, it wasnt Kohlis signature. He was not touching them. He was not going to panic if they turned past him.The last mental error that resulted in Kohlis dismissal before he had made an impact was in Kolkata, in the second Test against New Zealand, when he followed a sucker ball during a short-ball attack. Since then he has perhaps made one mental error, failing to keep a hook down in Visakhapatnam, but Rashid dropped him there. Five Tests since then is a long time to go as a batsman with few mental errors. Kohli is just an obsessed man. Kohli was 64 off 146 when he lost R Ashwin. India were 307 for 6. Kohli was now not going to wait patiently while the others fell: the last four had gone for 55 as he watched; he certainly couldnt have afforded a repeat. So he took Rashid on. It didnt matter that he was bowling from round the wicket to choke his runs. The puffs of dust didnt matter. He swept out of the rough. He punished anything short, splitting the reinforced leg-side field. This was a man who has all the shots but he had willingly shelved them. Lest anybody forgot.This charge completely negated the pitch and the field placements and the loss of another wicket. He hit one shot so hard the ball hit the hand of Rashid, the bowler, more than him dropping the catch. Poor Rashid, yet again. In these 40 balls, Kohli had gone from 64 to 99. This time Jake Ball ran in. Nineteen thousand four hundred in the stands. A loud chant of Kohli Kohli. You thought you had seen something special. You wondered if Kohli felt this hundred deserved a celebration.Kohli leant into a length ball, pushed it wide of mid-off, charged through, and raised his arm even before he reached the crease, unleashing a leap into the air. He removed his helmet, acknowledged the dressing room, and then took his time acknowledging the generous applause. We were back to the exuberant Kohli. The man himself felt this was something special. He had made all the physical and mental adjustments required to succeed on a difficult pitch in what he feels is the most demanding format of the sport.The job wasnt done yet, though. India were still 32 behind. Kohli had reached that rare zone where a cricketer does as he likes. Driving a legspinner against the turn, running hard deep into the sixth hour of his batting in the humidity of Mumbai, Kohli took India to a lead of 51. Towards the end he allowed himself a little indulgence. Impishly, he rubbed it in with a DRS signal when England had wasted theirs and now didnt have any left to call for a review when Jayant Yadav nicked one.Having reached 138, the lead 36, Kohli lofted Rashid back over his head and stood and admired his shot. Surely he felt many a time previously that he could do this as opposed to putting balls into gaps and then running his runs? These are not the best spinners he has faced, but he respected the sport, the requirement for the decisions he had made as a captain. So he played the loft only when his team had reached safety. For the first time since September 25. Only once in 805 balls of spin he had faced since then.Of course Kohli should have made an exception for such an effort and celebrated it the way he did. The way the innings deserved. Fake China Shoes .Y. -- Bills receiver Stevie Johnson has a bone to pick with the NFL schedule maker. 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Even trying to knock New Zealand off their game with a bit of niggle didnt work for Australia, and the way the All Blacks refused to be drawn into that sort of contest again spoke volumes for their Blacks attitude.The Aussies brought more grit to the game but, again, they didnt have the arsenal. New Zealands hard men -- Dane Coles, Brodie Retallick, Jerome Kaino and Kieran Read -- all fronted and stood up and went straight back at them. You would have to say that approach didnt really help Australias cause.I think they played better than in the first Test but at the same time it was good for the All Blacks to be exposed to that. There was a bit more intent and more of the physicality that you would expect, but there is a clear gap between the two teams.Theres an old cliché that you win the fight if youre not going to win the game, and I think the Wallabies employing that niggle was a defeatist sort of approach. When you go into a game looking to put niggle in youve already put the white flag up. Youre basically saying: Theres no way we can beat this team so well try and kneecap them where we can and try and nullify parts of it.If they concentrated on their own game and the brand and style they wanted to play its a different story; but when you get a 10 and a 12 who havent played together before then defensively they are fragile. Australia were throwing all they but they didnt have the firepower to beat the All Blacks, and with the injuries they have sustained it was desperate measures.Theyd been through a really, really tough week and it would have been great to see them come out being a little humble and gallant at the end. The best thing you can do is applaud the All Blacks on their performance. But to carry on the way Michael Cheika has done, blaming the referee and getting really upset in the coaches box, not many people are going to sympathise with him.They were under pressure with injuries, and thats something the All Blacks dont face. With Matt Giteau gone, youve got Bernard Foley and Quade Cooper, and you have to ask: Who is the next best first five-eighth?Compare that to New Zealand, who have Beauden Barrett, Lima Sopoaga, Aaron Cruden, Damian McKenzie, Jordie Barrett, Otere Black and Richard Mounga all coming through; and we are going to see in the Mitre 10 Cup a whole lot more who are going to stick their hand up.You can look at second five-eighth Anton Lienert-Brown and the way he stepped up when given his chance. He is a classic example of the system at work, and he did not look at all out of place in that side. He showed the right temperament in the right environment and you want to nurture that.The foundation to the New Zealand game is reflected by the cream at the top. People ask about New Zealands dominance, and it comes right back to the grassroots at club or schoolboy level and taking that all the way through to the All Blacks.The stepping stones are there to really develop professional rugby players. Australia dont have that model, and rugby sits probably fourth or fifth, and falling, in the landscape as a winter code, and you have to ask if the seriously best athletes choose to play rugby. The answer is probably nnot.dddddddddddd Thats why they tap into the Pacific Islands and tap into New Zealand.Steve Hansen is right when he says rugby needs Australia strong; its in the games best interests. When you think they were involved in the Rugby World Cup final with no given that the All Blacks were going to walk away with that game, you have to ask what has happened in the space of 10 months? It is of concern and while the model has everyone chasing the dollar, it is still the foundations of the game that are crucial. The amateur develops the semi-professional who develops the professional and then the internationals. And those stepping stones arent there inside Australia.Its not an easy fix and its not an overnight fix. The rest of the world is always looking at New Zealand and what we are doing and, again, I go back to the importance of the Mitre 10 Cup and what it means for New Zealand to develop that next level of player. Its the foundation of everything we do that is good in rugby.So far as the alleged eye-gouging is concerned, I dont think there was anything in it and the Australia reaction is born out of frustration. Owen Franks didnt put his finger in his eye, he ran his hand down Kane Douglas face. The referee made the right decision and moved on.Theres many a time at the bottom of a ruck Ive had a finger in the eye. It does go on but the Franks incident was nothing and because it has been highlighted the right people who make the decisions have said there was nothing in it and that is the end of the matter.Argentina have produced an interesting win over South Africa, and it bears out the point that you dont invite teams into the Rugby Championship and expect them to get worse; you want them to improve and Argentina have done as a result of their introduction to the Championship and also Super Rugby.There are some great games still to be played in the competition with Argentina and South Africa both coming to New Zealand to play the All Blacks, but you would have to say that with their maximum 10 points from their two games the All Blacks are off to a flyer. Theyre going to be hard to catch.At the same time, teams like Argentina and South Africa will come to New Zealand looking to play their biggest game of the season and there is always the chance they will pull a top performance out of the bag. However, with the Bledisloe Cup in the bag after two games the All Blacks only really have to worry about the All Blacks.The position the All Blacks are in now allows assessments to be made of players on the fringe of the side well before the next Rugby World Cup. I think it is great that players are being given these chances like James Parsons and Seta Tamanivalu.In the past the All Blacks have been guilty of not giving guys opportunities, but under Steve Hansen such a wide base has been created to select from that it is only going to make the All Blacks stronger.And the fact is that in another nine or 10 weeks at the end of the Mitre 10 Cup we are going to have a whole bunch of other youngsters putting their hands up. ' ' '