Curious case of how Kohli lost talisman status
Without a century in any form of cricket since 2019, India’s former captain risks being written off as a burnt-out case
In Kolkata in November 2019, Virat Kohli scored 136 against Bangladesh. Ostensibly, it was a routine event: Kohli’s 27th Test century, 70th in all international cricket and a mere continuation of his relentless excellence. Certainly, there was no indication of what would come next.
As India return to complete their Test series with England, that innings against Bangladesh remains Kohli’s last hundred in any form of the game. In 2½ years and 17 Tests since, Kohli has averaged 28.03, without scoring a century. His malaise has extended to the shorter formats: in this year’s Indian Premier League, he averaged just 22.7.
First, Kohli gave up the Twenty20 international captaincy, then the one-day international and Test jobs. But the curious case of his dwindling form has remained. And so, the question has become inescapable: what is ailing one of the titans of the modern game?
The first answer, perhaps, lies well away from the pitch. “As cricketers, we limit ourselves to how much we want to do without trying to find out how much we can do,” Kohli said in 2017. “I want to explore more, understand my maximum ability, even with the intensity in the field. The day I start getting burnt out, I pull back.”
The sense is growing that, because of what he has put into nearly 14 years of international cricket, exacerbated by two years of playing in biosecure bubbles, Kohli could simply be burnt out. “Kohli is overcooked. If anyone needs a break, it’s him,” Ravi Shastri, who left as India head coach late last year, said recently, warning that Kohli was at risk of getting a “fried brain”.
Cricketers have tended to go from one engagement to the next, and have only an extended break when they are injured. Yet Kohli needs to look only at the identity of England’s Test captain for an example of what an extended break can achieve. Ben Stokes missed last year’s series and the T20
World Cup “to prioritise his mental wellbeing”; now, he and his side are reinvigorated.
Kohli has also suffered from specific technical issues during his slump. Two interconnected problems, both against pace bowlers, stand out. Kohli has become newly vulnerable to deliveries well wide of off stump, those over 40cm wider. From averaging 40 against such deliveries in the five years until 2020, he is averaging just 14 since.
In England last year, he was dismissed six times by deliveries either in the channel outside off stump or a little wider: whether it was New Zealand’s Kyle Jamieson in the World Test Championship final, or James Anderson, he was susceptible pushing at balls away from his body. At the same time, he has become vulnerable to fuller deliveries.
Kohli is renowned as an endless tinkerer, most obviously in leading him to return to England in 2018 with a new stance – pointing his toe at point, rather than cover – and hitting the ball half a metre further forward than in his poor tour in 2014.
The result was a magnificent tour in 2018. But last summer, England found a new method to counter Kohli. They bowled 0.7metres fuller to him in his first 20 balls than in 2018, a length designed to compel him to play at as many balls as possible early on. One of the eternal compromises of batting is between being more vulnerable on the outside edge – like Joe Root – or the inside edge, like Devon Conway. In his current incarnation, Kohli’s vulnerability is on his outside edge, leaving him susceptible to balls moving away. He is averaging just 27 against outswingers since 2020.
And so, in recent months, it has become increasingly tempting to proclaim that we are in the end days of Kohli. That would surely be premature. He has a track record of overcoming seemingly major technical issues and there is no indication that his voracious work ethic has diminished. Perhaps this magnetic cricketer needs a break; perhaps he simply needs some luck. Either way, international cricket will be more compelling if – and, surely, when – Kohli returns to something
approaching his best.