India remain favorites despite Kohli defeat - Agnew

It's sad that a player of his caliber is not here and like Harry Brook, who also retired for personal reasons, I hope all is well.

But for England's hopes in isolation cold, Kohli's absence is a huge boost.

It's not just Kohli the batsman - the scorer of nearly 9,000 runs with the experience of 113 Tests - who India will miss, but also the man himself and his aggressive presence on the field.

He may no longer be captain but Kohli still rallies the players.

It is true that the players now feel capable of making the decisions that Kohli and Brook made.

< p class="" data-reactid="".m8bez9doco.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-7">When I played back then, players were away for months and didn't see their partners and families.

Children were being born and players would not see them for months.

If these players' minds aren't in the right place, then they shouldn't be there . In this regard, cricket has changed for the better.

Even without Kohli, England still face to a very difficult challenge. over the next eight weeks.

The results speak for themselves. India have not lost a series since Alastair Cook's England won there in 2012 and have lost just three of 46 Tests in that period.

One ​​such defeat was inflicted by England last time out in Chennai in 2021, when Joe Root's double century clinched victory on very flat ground.

We all remember what happened next.

The pitches quickly moved to the turning surfaces and India won 3-1. When that happens, conditions become very, very difficult for any visiting team.

C' It is for these reasons that England's two victories in India - in 2012 and David Gower's trip in 1984-85 - stand out as two of their best in modern times.

I was part of the team on that tour to Gower and a lot of our success was due to the high morale within the team.

We had good camaraderie and it was a happy tour. This is really essential when things get tough, like when we lost the first Test of the series like Cook's team did 28 years later.

We trained most of the time and played tour matches between each test match, something modern teams don't have the luxury of. We didn't play a lot of golf, unlike Ben Stokes' team.

Phil Edmonds, the former Middlesex and England left-arm spinner, was my housemate. We would walk around the souks or bazaars and the locals would come in droves to see Phil because they loved him as a great, charismatic Englishman.

We were going sightseeing - I remember a trip to the Chandigarh Botanical Gardens - and this was because the team makes a real effort to embrace and enjoy the local culture.