Will England see Kohli of old?
The last time he was in UK, he was the undisputed face of Indian cricket but so much has changed in the past 12 months
MUMBAI: To re-enter the contest against England, for the fifth Test, must evoke rather strange feelings for Virat Kohli. At the start of this series, in 2021, he was the undisputed face of Indian cricket as the premier batter and their all-format captain. Even the build-up to the marquee bilateral contest was centred on him.
Captaining the team brilliantly in his inimitable, no-holds barred style, Kohli had marshalled the side to a 2-1 lead before Covid-19 cases in the India camp forced the postponement of the final game. In the long gap between the fourth Test played in September 2021 and the fifth Test of the India-England series to be played in July, he can’t be faulted for thinking how the cricketing universe has kind of conspired against him. He seems a little unsure. He seems edgy. He doesn’t seem like the Kohli of old.
He is not the captain of the side anymore. In his last Test, against Sri Lanka in March, his batting average slipped below 50 for the first time since 2017.
Surprisingly, the slide started immediately after the good performances against England. On returning home, Kohli shocked Indian cricket by announcing his decision to step down from T20 captaincy after the T20 World Cup in November (2021). At the same time, he also decided to step down as captain of RCB after IPL 2021.
The timing of these decisions raised a lot of questions. BCCI officials felt it would have been better if he had made the announcement after the T20 World Cup in the UAE.
The worst fears came true. The World Cup was a disaster with India exiting in the group stage. And it marked the beginning of the end of Kohli’s long and fairly successful captaincy stint in other formats as well.
ODI and Test captaincy
In December, Kohli was removed as India’s ODI captain with the national selection committee making Rohit Sharma the sole white-ball leader of the team with the 2023 50-over World Cup in mind. The Chetan Sharma-led selection committee’s argument was that there can’t be two separate captains for white-ball cricket. The debacle in South Africa at the start of 2022 was the final blow. A day after India lost the series 2-1 to South Africa, Kohli again shocked everyone by resigning as Test captain, after leading the team to several triumphs since taking over the reins from MS Dhoni following the Melbourne Test against Australia in 2014.
When Kohli announced the decision to step down as T20 captain, he cited the immense workload, as an all-format player and captain, for his decision.
“Understanding workload is a very important thing and considering my immense workload over the last 8-9 years playing all three formats and captaining regularly for last five to six years, I feel I need to give myself space to be fully ready to lead the Indian team in Test and ODI cricket,” he said in his statement.
Lost batting form
The decision to relinquish the captaincy was tinged with the hope that it will see the resurgence of Kohli the batter. It hasn’t, however, worked out. As he prepares for the fifth Test, the halo has diminished.
He is still to figure out the missing elements of his game which made him tick as a batter who earned the sobriquet ‘the best of his generation’. For a player who was expected to come closest to Sachin Tendulkar’s record tally of 51 tons, the Test century count is stuck at 27. It’s now been 17 Tests without a hundred for Kohli. His last hundred came in November 2019, in India’s first pink-ball Test against Bangladesh in Kolkata.
Average below 50
The greats have always maintained a career average of 50. Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid never let it dip below this mark after they touched it.
His career has spanned over a decade. At his peak, Kohli touched an average of 55.1. In his last Test, his average slipped to 49.95 (aggregate 8,043 runs in 101 Tests).
For Kohli, even IPL didn’t go well this season. He ended with 341 runs in 16 matches at an average of 22.73 and strike rate of 115.98 with two fifties.
Kohli’s campaign also included three golden ducks (one against Lucknow Super Giants and two against Sunrisers Hyderabad).
After his 54-ball 73 against Gujarat Titans on May 19, Kohli said he is not worried about his form because there was no particular weakness, meaning there was not a pattern to his dismissals like his rough patch against England in 2014.
“I am not looking to put this phase behind me, to be honest. What happened in England (2014) was a pattern so something that I could work on, something that I had to overcome. Right now, there is nothing that you can point out saying there is a problem here,” Kohli told IPL broadcaster, Star Sports. During India’s tour of England in 2014, he got just 134 runs in 10 innings at 13.40 with James Anderson dismissing him four times in the five-Test series.
“So, that for me is an easier thing to process because I know that I’m batting well and at times when I start feeling that rhythm back then I know I am batting well, which wasn’t the case in England (where) I didn’t feel like I was batting well at all.”
The bowlers may be feeling more confident bowling to him now, but none will be taking it easy against someone of Kohli’s calibre. The thing about such class players is that they are just one innings away from turning things around.
After two decent outings in the warm-up game against Leicestershire (33 and 67), he will be feeling more confident going into the fifth Test starting on Friday.
And what better occasion to make a statement. He has played such a big part in putting India on the verge of the series win and it will only be fitting if he seals it with a big hundred.