Adelaide was where he arrived. Adelaide was where he stumbled at the doorstep of greatness. Those elusive 48 runs, as India lost narrowly on the fifth evening despite a century in each innings by their talismanic stand-in captain, will probably rankle all his life. But minutes after the long walk back, bearing the scars of a bloody battle on his psyche and with a funereal dressing room virtually in tears, Virat Kohli made a stirring speech. He had batted like a champion and he spoke like a leader, telling his teammates that they had two choices. They could either pat themselves on the back and claim moral victory for the stunning counterattack on Day 5 of the first Test, or they could try to decipher why they had choked at the finish line once again. It was clear that Kohli was egging them down the second, more uncomfortable, path.
