5 min readUpdated: Jul 13, 2026 06:43 PM IST When India’s young T20 batters arrived in Birmingham after a horror fortnight in England, they had two teammates in the dressing room who had lived through exactly this kind of struggle before, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Both know, better than most in that squad, that no batsman comes through an England tour unscathed, whatever the format. Kohli still winces at how James Anderson worked him over in 2014, ball after ball shaped away, an entire series spent chasing a line he couldn’t leave alone. Rohit has spent years trying to forget a shot at Southampton, tea approaching, when he went after Moeen Ali and picked out the fielder at mid-on. He would not get another chance to bat in a Test in England until the World Test Championship final in 2021, seven years later. Kohli’s redemption came sooner, in 2018, a different batsman by the time he returned, one who had rebuilt his game specifically for these conditions. Both are now in the last stretch …