The tourists must pick the best possible XI as decline of Virat Kohli and captain Rohit Sharma is laid clear against Australia. Australian tours have a habit of making or breaking Test careers. VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid destroyed Australia’s world-record winning streak at Kolkata in 2001, overcoming one of the greatest teams and its champion bowlers Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. By 2012, Australia’s home grounds ended Laxman and Dravid, four Tests across the country returning a pair of half-centuries and bringing two fine careers to a deflating close against the more modest threat of Ben Hilfenhaus and Nathan Lyon.
![[Virat Kohli during India’s training session at the SCG]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f74c390276e214f2f3998f9185b5c46d2aadf627/0_204_6122_3673/master/6122.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag were two more declining champions who creaked through that tour and were managed out of the side by the following year. The only player who fell into the make rather than break category was a young Virat Kohli, who scored his first century in Adelaide of a tally that he has now taken on to 30. Now, as the wheel turns, he and captain Rohit Sharma form another pair of champions whose decline is being laid clear by the harsh light of the southern sun.
Kohli is the one who looks like he is fighting it: still physically fit to the point of twanging like a taut string, still simmering on the field with the intensity that sees him do unnecessary things like shirtfront Sam Konstas in Melbourne, still looking organised with his movements at the crease and glaring at the ball as if trying to read its mind. Everything up until the point when his concentration flickers like a fuse has popped, and he gets out playing the same push outside off-stump.
