It's 16th of December, 2020. India is standing at the back of an ODI series loss and a momentum shifting win in the t20i series. It's time for the marquee Border Gavaskar trophy. The pink ball test, the boxing day, new year's test and the Gabba Challenge. Are we up for it?

Join me on a special thread where I take you through the series with the journey of the series. We shall look at the playing 11s, the game progressions, special strategies, important moments, standout performances.

Fasten your seat belt or don't, hop on anyway for 46 tweets ☺️

Match 1: Adelaide

Jadeja is injured so Ashwin becomes an easy answer for the tough question of the lone spinner. There are other tough questions as to who should be the 2nd opener, Gill who had good practice game or Shaw who scored a 50 in the last test he played? Pant or Saha?

India is going into the pink ball test with Pace trio Bumrah Shami Umesh. Shaw is opening and Saha keeping. A decision probably taken with the Wicketkeeping ability as the priority

Virat has one the toss and decided to bat. He has never lost a test match after winning the toss

Second ball of the first over and the nightmares turn true as Starc runs through Shaw. Mayank gets out after getting a start and then Virat stitches two gritty partnerships with Pujara and Rahane. Things turn bad only when Virat gets run out on an unfortunate wrong call by Rahane

So ICC declared Virat Kohli as the Captain of their test team of the decade.

I have made an attempt to go through his series wise journey as the test captain and have attempted to do a critical analysis of his achievements, failures and challenges for the future.

Please enjoy

Indian test team was going through a very rough patch during 13-14, having lost successive series to SA, NZ, Eng, Aus. It was during the Aus series that MSD decided to hang his boots and handover the very young test team to his then deputy Virat Kohli.

The only veteran in the team was Ishant Sharma who had around 60 matches of experience by then, Virat Kohli being the 2nd one with 30 matches to his name. The Average experience of batting unit was 18 and bowling unit was 21, with overall squad average experience being 20 matches

Excluding the 2014 Australia tour, here is a thread of every test series that India played under Virat. I will discuss the results and the highlights of the tour and would give some remarks as per my memory.
The numbers are approximately because I am a B grade stats digger 🤪

1. June 15 - Tour of BD - 1 match

The only match resulted in a draw because of rain. Indian Openers Vijay and Dhawan piled 150+ each to make India reach 462-6. India bowled out BD at a low score and made them follow-on. Ashwin claimed a fifer and started his era of dominance.