On his first tour of Australia, a young and brash Virat Kohli flipped the bird to abusive local fans. It won’t be as easy this summer for him to dismiss the calling of Father Time.
The great Kohli has become mediocre. It’s not an overreaction to one bad series but a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw after five years of middling performances.
Virat Kohli enters this summer’s series against Australia in a five-year form slump.Credit: Getty Images
Since the start of 2020, Kohli is averaging a tick under 32 with the bat. In all but one of those years, he has averaged below 30.
The raging turners that have become the norm in India have not helped, nor can they be solely blamed for his downturn. His away average of 33.57 is only slightly better than the mark of 29.92 in India. He has struggled both at home and abroad.
Damningly, eight other Indian batters in this period, who have played a minimum of 20 innings, have a higher average than Kohli. Internationally, he sits 55th. The man they call “King Kohli” is in the company of journeymen.
Any other player with those numbers would have been dropped. Take Shreyas Iyer and K.L. Rahul, who have marginally better numbers. Iyer did not get a ticket on the plane to Australia, even with India A. Rahul is the social media whipping boy for cricket fans in India.
Ricky Ponting’s surprise that Kohli had scored just two centuries from his past 60 innings drew a sharp rebuke from Indian coach Gautam Gambhir this week.
Just as well the former captain of Australia did not have the cheek to say that in the 1205 days between Kohli’s 27th and 28th Test hundreds, the world endured a pandemic and found a vaccine for COVID-19.
There would not be many people in the world who have seen Kohli play as often as has former Indian batter turned respected analyst Sanjay Manjrekar.
He attributes Kohli’s issues more to his technique than any weakening of the eye or the slowing down of reflexes that is common for any elite athlete who has just turned 36.
Kohli loves getting on the front foot. It is not a matter of ego, Manjrekar said, but comes from the fear of being caught behind the wicket. By coming forward or batting out of his crease, he is better-placed to smother late movement away from him. Except spin is best played on the back foot, giving the batter that extra split second to adjust.
“His judgment of length, whether it’s spin or pace, has gone down,” Manjrekar said. “It’s not as great as it used to be. That comes back to him. He was one of India’s best players of spin, [and] played a lot off the back foot.
“Now there’s a lot of front-foot play in everything he does, so his perception of length has not been great. That’s a reason he doesn’t have the kind of numbers he’s had in the past.
“Once he’s on the front foot, the balls he used to cut and pull off the back foot he was defending. He’s just made his own life more difficult.”
When it comes to assessing a player’s psyche, body language can be misleading. Actions, though, paint a clearer picture. Kohli’s recent dismissals are revealing.
In Pune last month, Kohli played around a full toss from Mitchell Santner and was bowled. Former New Zealand captain Ian Smith, stunned by the margin by which Kohli missed the ball, summed up the disbelief in the crowd and the bewilderment on Kohli’s face on commentary, saying the dismissal was so strange it belonged in a museum.
“The great man has gone in the most unlikely Kohli fashion,” Smith said on the coverage. “That would have gone past his bat at a relatively full length. That is so, so unusual. So unusual that dismissal, you should put in a museum. It’s a weird one.”
His runout in the following game in Mumbai was equally unlikely. In what would have been the final over of the day, Kohli set off for a risky single to get off strike but was caught well short of his ground. The Kohli of old would have backed himself to see off the final few balls instead of seeking the sanctuary of the non-striker’s end. It was just the fourth time he had been run out in 200 Test innings.
“Clearly, in that series, because the conditions were such [that] he wasn’t feeling confident or hopeful, he wasn’t trusting his defence, he was slightly nervous of mind and uncertain,” Manjrekar said.
“The clarity at the moment has not been 100 per cent. That comes with pressure, a lack of runs, and he’s not a young 25- to 27-year-old any more.”
Manjrekar is drawing confidence from Kohli’s performances in South Africa, where he averaged above 40 in his past two tours. With their pace and bounce, the pitches in South Africa are the most similar to Australia, a country where he has historically thrived.
“This will suit him,” Manjrekar said. “Turning pitches, low bounce, [the] ball coming slowly off the pitch, everything is not quite as ideal. The way he batted in South Africa against a good attack – South African pitches are even more difficult than Australian pitches because there’s lateral movement right through. He handled that really well.
“I would say forget about the home series. South Africa is quite recent. I would urge people to have a look at his numbers there. He looked India’s best player by far that trip. I’m looking that as evidence of what we can expect from Virat in Australia.”
Kohli is still held in high regard in Australia, in and outside the dressing room. Bookmakers have Kohli as the favourite to be India’s leading run-scorer. One player, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he was always worried about Kohli – that he’s too good a player to keep down.
As well as Kohli has played in Australia, pitches on these shores have tilted back in favour of the bowler since his halcyon days. In the past four seasons, wickets have fallen to about 29 runs apiece, compared to 34 in the preceding four.
Australia’s plans for Kohli will be simple on greener pitches: aim for the top of off stump and rely on the pitch to do the rest.
“I don’t think you can gloss over that point about the pitches,” former Australia captain Mark Taylor said. “That is true. You only have to look at [Steve] Smith, [Marnus] Labuschagne, [and David] Warner the last couple of years. All of Australia’s best batsmen have struggled in that time as well.”
Taylor, who came out of a horror stretch late in his career to retire on his own terms, is well-positioned to empathise with Kohli. Experience and knowledge helps, Taylor said, but sometimes you can know too much as well.
“All of a sudden, the fear level’s up, the desire to finish well is there,” Taylor said. “Whereas when you’re just out there batting, trying to stay in the team, and make as many as you can, and you’re not sure if you’ll ever be good enough, in a way that makes you play better.”
Taylor, who was as shocked as any to see the depth of Kohli’s decline, can see a proverbial Indian summer for him.
“Something insides me tells me look out from an Australian point of view,” Taylor said. “I’m sure the Australians will be very mindful of Virat Kohli averaging 32 the last four years.”
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