After 2018 high in England, skipper goes fishing again
Just like he did in 2014, Virat Kohli is repeatedly getting out to deliveries bowled outside the off-stump
KOLKATA: Edge, edge, edge, edge and edge; Virat Kohli’s summer of 2021 in England is slowly turning into a forgettable string of pokes, tentative pushes and miscued drives.
Great batsmen go through lean patches but this is strikingly similar to a time when Kohli had yet to find a method to bat in England. We are familiar with the chronology of England tours in Kohli’s career—falling regularly to deliveries outside off-stump in 2014 but rectifying it to score heavily in 2018.
Is 2021 then a rerun of 2014? The pattern of his dismissals certainly suggests so. It’s vexing because rarely do batsmen unlearn important lessons, and here we are talking about an astute student of the game. But it’s also an intensely internal process for him, something the India captain detests talking about openly.
The scrutiny is inescapable because of the precedence Kohli set in 2018, especially against James Anderson. Kohli was expected to lead India’s resurgence against an England team that was struggling. That though hasn’t been the case. It is bound to play on the mind. Take for example that brief passage of play on Saturday when Kohli began to walk after being given out caught behind to Anderson, until non-striker Ajinkya Rahane prompted him to review. It’s almost standard practice for Kohli to review marginal decisions against him. To walk away when there was daylight between bat and ball— he seemed to be influenced by the bat brushing pad as he played forward—shows even the best can falter during an uncertain phase. For Kohli, that uncertainty now is his game outside off-stump.
There are two aspects to Kohli’s batting that make him— his stance and where he stands, outside the crease. The most radical among the changes Kohli brought about in 2018 was to stand well outside the crease; almost 50cm—or half a metre— according to Cricviz, so that he could counter the swing earlier
than he did in 2014. Not much has changed in 2021 too except that England’s seamers are bowling fuller to him now. If the average length to Kohli was 7.2m from his stumps in 2014, it was shorter in 2018 at 7.5m from the stumps.
This series, England have been hitting 7.1m. Since Kohli’s average interception point hasn’t changed much, England have a slender but better chance of making him drive at fuller deliveries. A glance at his dismissals across the three tours will show how similar 2014 and 2018 were. It can be argued why a batsman at this level can’t force a change of length by retreating into his crease or play on his back foot more often, like Joe Root. Kohli though seems overwhelmingly committed to his front-foot game, repeatedly approaching the swinging delivery with hard hands and an angled bat when he could have left it alone.
A subtler but career-altering change in stance was introduced in 2018 with Kohli becoming more side-on. A Sky Sports masterclass video shows Kohli explaining this change to former England captain Nasser Hussain. “After my initial movement, I figured out that my toe wasn’t going towards point, rather it was towards cover point so my hip was opening up initially,” says Kohli. “Then, to get the feel of the ball, I had to open up my head because I was too side-on. I have a strong bottom-hand grip and I didn’t have much room for my shoulder to adjust to the line of the ball, so it was too late for me to react to anything that swung in front of my eyes.
“I went back and did some drills, making sure that someone was recording me from the side. Every time I play the ball, I wanted to make sure that my toe was pointing in the direction of point rather than cover. That way I kept my hip nice and side-on and gave myself some room. I widened my stance as well, so that I have good balance when I want to go forward.”
A few days back, Hussain analysed Kohli’s struggles on Sky Sports, explaining how he has gone back to batting with an open stance. “Look at him on the last tour, that back foot is virtually parallel to the popping crease,” he says. “Roll it forward to this series and he turns that back foot. Everything he said in that masterclass that he shouldn’t be doing, he’s gone back to doing, turning that back foot which means his hips and his shoulders open up and that strong bottom hand takes over. These are poor dismissals. There is a psychological thing with Kohli as well, he wants to impose himself but there’s a lot of that right shoulder showing. The man himself told us what he was trying to do from 2014 to 2018, but he’s gone back and slipped into old habits; England, in these conditions, will expose any slight flaw. So far, they’ve done it with Kohli.”
In opening his stance in the last few years to get more runs on the leg-side (65 runs to 59 on the off-side so far in this series), Kohli has again made himself more vulnerable outside offstump. Since he seems almost adamant to have a go at every ball in that channel, when ideally he should have seen off the probing spells, Kohli has not batted long enough—the durations of his five innings so far are 1 ball, 103 balls, 31 balls, 17 balls and 125 balls.
Root, leading scorer of this series with 507 runs, has already played 826 balls. Leaving the ball was something Kohli did superbly in 2018, as Anderson recalls in a Test Match Special podcast. “He left the ball really well in 2018. The first time he came over (in 2014), when I was bowling outswingers he might chase it early on and that brought the edge and the slips into play. He left it a lot better and was a lot more patient (in 2018). He waited for you to bowl at him and then he’s very strong off his legs so he could score freely.” That series, Kohli scored 321 runs on the offside but was prolific on the legside too, aggregating 271 runs.
Great players often resort to drastic reforms mid-series to emerge from a rut. Sachin Tendulkar didn’t drive once through cover in Sydney to amass 241, forcing Australia to chase India’s coattails during the drawn series in 2003-4. This Indian team has done remarkably better than most of its earlier versions in England, but to win this series they will need a marquee innings from Kohli. There is no denying that Kohli has a problem outside offstump. There is also no doubt that a batsman of his calibre will invariably find the means to bounce back. Question is, how?