India vs England 4th Test: Virat Kohli & Co cut off outside noise, reverse fortunes at Oval

London, September 6: The moment could be cut into an Instagram reel and watch countless times. Virat Kohli high on air, his bended knees almost at the midriff level of KL Rahul, head above everyone. The snickometer had just confirmed James Anderson's bat had indeed made contact with the ball en route to Risbabh Pant gloves.

Now, that display of enthusiasm is not alien to Kohli. We had seen it several times, at several grounds. A shallow showboat for some. A free-spirited and animated man for some other. But at the Oval, the outpouring of his expressions made perfect sense.

From the starting point of this series against England, Kohli has been under scrutiny, primarily for the non-selection of R Ashwin.

It evolved into a national topic of discussion, social media was on fire and Kohli standing as the prime villain in almost all threads. You know the kind from Hollywood flicks - cold and ready to burn the world for his ego. His struggle for runs in the series too gave that whole villainy plot a devious turn.

But Kohli remained cold to all that outside noise. Even when he was asked about team combination, his replies were more prosaic laced with all that intent, template, focus etc. When we thought Kohli would bristle like a cowboy with cigar on his lips, the Indian skipper gave us a suited-up diplomat version of him.

Kohli just expressed his unwavering faith in the template - four fast bowlers and one spinner in Ravindra Jadeja - on all those occasions.

But at the Oval, Kohli was perilously close to descending into an even deeper hole for sticking to his guns. India were 127 for 7 on the first day, then they conceded a 99 runs lead and then saw Haseeb Hameed and Rory Burns building a 100-run partnership in England's second innings.

In fact, England had all the 10 wickets intact on the final day, and the pitch though scuffed up was not hiding any demons. Indian bowlers' perseverance was certain to get tested. In turn, Kohli's sagacity as captain too.

India needed that one big effort to complete the work Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara and Shardul Thakur did with the bat in the second innings.

"The character that the side has shown, to come back from a near 100-run deficit showed that we were not down and out. I said at the Lord's as well, I am proud of the character of the team. This was among the top three bowling performances I have witnessed as India captain.

"It's relative - what you call flat, field wasn't wet like the first three days, ball got scuffed up nicely, one side heavier, and exploited the reverse swing perfectly. We believed as a team that we could get all 10 wickets."

Nobody embodied that thought more visibly than Jasprit Bumrah. Ollie Pope had that look of disbelief when Bumrah nipped one back slightly from the length to sneak the ball past his bat and pads to rattle the timber.

But on Jonny Bairstow's face disbelief transformed into helplessness. Bumrah seared in a yorker at 140+ clicks and it rearranged his stumps before he could bring his bat down. A few balls later, Bumrah could have had Joe Root too with another burning yorker but the England skipper was a bit luckier.

"Big effort, giving away just 27 runs off 22 overs on this kind of pitch is a huge effort. When it started reversing Bumrah said give me the ball," said Kohli.

It was almost as if that cold focus of Kohli was percolated into the bowlers. They just did not care about the character of the pitch or conditions, their attention was on how to eke out the best out of old ball.

It led to a catastrophic afternoon where England middle-order was blown away like a rotten twig in a display of brilliant reverse swing. But Jadeja's effort might have had the most pleasing effect on Kohli. It was that decision to prefer him over Ashwin earned Kohli a few blows.

After all, Ashwin has the better record against the left-handers and England had three of them in Burns, Moeen Ali and Dawid Malan in the top order. Jadeja did not give too many freebies and an analysis of 30-11-50-2 at a run-rate of 1.66 from the left-arm spinner helped India maintain pressure on England.

The wicket of Moeen meant that Root's men would have to negotiate pressure from both ends and merely seeing of Bumrah will not suffice. A fall of 4 for 6 was too heavy for England to negate on the final noon.

Kohli's words reflected it. "We never go towards statistics, we know what we focus on, we take a call on what feel best for the team and we believe we can win Tests with it. Whatever the noise on the outside, it doesn't bother us," he said.

Yes, we are doubly certain of it now!