While Cook and Co are trying hard to get India captain Virat Kohli out early on the field, the English media is almost acting like a 12th man to the team working overtime to distract the Indian captain from his mission.
A Daily Mail report on Tuesday indirectly accused Kohli of ball tampering during the first Test in Rajkot. Also, former England captain Nasser Hussain in his column for the similar newspaper criticised Kohli's captaincy a day earlier, asking him to learn the art of it. He called him 'tactically naïve'.
The report on Tuesday claimed that the 28-year-old Indian captain appeared shining the ball using residue from a sweet during the drawn match, where he stole the show with a stubborn 49 not out.
It presented images and video as evidences to back their allegations that saw him put his right hand towards the mouth and use his saliva to shine one side of the ball.
"The 28-year-old can be seen rubbing his fingers in his mouth, inside of which is a sweet. He then appears to shine one side of the ball," the report said.
However, the evidence seems to be inconclusive as there is no clarity in both the video and the photographs that have been put up on their website.
According to reports, the International Cricket Council also rubbished the ball tampering allegations against Kohli put up by the media house.
It said the video of Kohli from the Rajkot Test was nine days old and thus action could not be taken on it.
Kohli has been in roaring form off late in all formats of the game. In the Vizag Test, he single-handedly took the game away from England scoring 248 (168 & 81) before the spinners folded out the visitors for 158, giving India a handsome 246 runs victory.
England captain Alastair Cook said that Kohli made the difference. "If you took Virat's runs out of the game — I know you can't do that — but we have put their batters under a lot of pressure," he had said after Vizag game.
Hussain had problems with Kohli being the team's ball shiner. He wrote in his column: "He (Kohli) seems to want to be the team's ball-shiner, the guy who rouses the crowd, and the only one involved in the DRS process.
Look at the way Cook does it: he stays calm and isn't afraid to use other people, even the juniors, as he showed when Hameed was sure he'd heard a nick from short leg when Stuart Broad got KL Rahul on the third evening," Hussain wrote in his column.
Hussain also wrote: "It's difficult for a captain to tick every box — and Virat Kohli ticks plenty of them. But, for such a wonderfully attacking player, I'm surprised by how defensive he's been in the field so far in this series."
Before adding this: "Kohli also changes his field virtually every ball, which is unsettling for his bowlers. If he's constantly tinkering, it means they think they have to change their plans."
How does anyone know what is going in the skipper's mind. He has been aggressive and planning on his own which has been successful.
Mind you, Kohli is not someone to be distracted with these things easily. This could charge up the passionate and aggressive player further.
And an infuriated Kohli will be more dangerous than a Zaheer Khan, who used the jelly bean incident to get back at England in 2007.
So, beware.
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 "Virat Kohli")
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