While he has tinkered with his game to some extent, he seems to not have explored his back-foot play as much as he could have
Sidharth Monga08-Jan-2025Business still picks up as soon as India’s second wicket falls. Broadcasts the world over dissect the dismissal less and focus more on what’s to come. Some don’t even cut to a commercial break. Crowds get louder, more focused. Because we are watching so intently, we possibly imagine the bowlers and fielders are more switched on and deliberate in their planning and execution.The naked human eye can’t tell if he has slowed down after all these years or if he is just being circumspect. We don’t know if he is tricking himself into a certain state of mind and adopting body language to match, but if you just watch Virat Kohli charge out to bat, you’d think he was 200 not out, going out to feast on tired bowlers. This is the one bit Kohli has always got right. He has played his best cricket when devoid of any self-doubt. Always optimistic, always involved, no room for a what-if. For whatever a state of mind, and the body language that accompanies it, is worth, Kohli nails it.It is the first morning of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, India are coming off a 3-0 home defeat, the ball is seaming a mile, Kohli has not scored big runs for a while, but when the second wicket falls for just 14, he walks out full of intent. He is itching to impose himself on the contest.In the brief innings that follows, he stands outside the crease and keeps charging at the bowlers – to the extent that his average interception points are further down the pitch than they have ever been for one of his innings. This is default Kohli. An emu in emu land. Never a backward step. When seam movement and accurate bowling undid him in England in 2014, Kohli reacted by widening his stance, standing outside the crease, and charging at the bowlers. The resurgence began in Australia later that year. Ever since then, whenever he has been challenged by the conditions or the bowling, Kohli has reacted by charging the quickest of bowlers.Having watched the Perth pitch settle down during a 201-run opening stand in the second innings, Kohli is less out of the crease, charges less, is less hyper, and scores a smooth, efficient hundred that never looks in doubt. It is hard to believe this is only his third century since the start of 2020.This, unfortunately, is no turnaround in his fortunes. This innings is an aberration. By the end of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Kohli has spent his last 15 series across nearly five years averaging just 30. His hundreds have come in team scores of 571, 438 and 487 for 6, from entry points of 187 for 2, 153 for 2 and 275 for 2. The overall average for No. 4 batters in Tests involving Kohli in this period is 35.6. After an unbelievable and rare peak of five years, Kohli has been subpar for five years. He has gone from scoring over 40% more than other top-seven batters to now being only as good as the overall average. At some point the selectors are going to have an uncomfortable conversation with him if this doesn’t change. Who’s to say they haven’t already?
Kohli is the master of tinkering with his game on the fly. That is another similarity he shares with India’s previous No. 4. The width of the stance, the tapping of the bat, the guard, how far out of the crease he stands – Kohli keeps changing all of this according to the conditions and bowling. Through this Border-Gavaskar Trophy he goes through a whole gamut, ending up with a more side-on stance that straightens the downswing of his bat. In doing that he also denies himself a little bit of room, taking power away from his drives.It is fascinating to watch a champion batter desperately trying to fight decline that is most likely linked to age, and to life in the most bowling-friendly era since pitches began to be covered. The soul of Kohli’s batting hasn’t changed from his peak to now. He commits forward every opportunity he gets in order to meet the ball before it moves laterally. He ends up playing at balls he shouldn’t be playing because of this commitment. He commits and reaches out because you don’t readily get half-volleys in Test cricket.Then again, Kohli did all that at his peak too and averaged 62 from 2015 to 2019. During that period he averaged 62 to balls pitched on a length or short of a good length at a third and fourth set of stumps. Since 2020 he averages 14 there.
Fascinating as it might be to watch him trying to overcome a weakness, it is also painful to see Kohli keep getting out in the same fashion. Including even after Scott Boland announced Australia’s plan for him in a press conference. As with the fitness and depth of bowling attacks, their planning also keeps improving. Bowlers have now stopped bowling in the channel to Kohli. They bowl a couple of sets of stumps wide and give him nothing full. The margin of error for the bowlers is greater on the short side because Kohli has consciously traded back-foot runs for the ease of cover-driving.So worried was he about edging outside off that in the last Test of the series, Kohli ended up giving up his cover-drive as well, by going completely side-on. There was a painful inevitability to his eventual dismissals in both innings. In trying to prevent edges off drives, he ended up losing power on those strokes and defensive pushes because of his commitment to play at those deliveries.
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Kohli is trying everything on the field, but perhaps because of the slowing down that comes with age, perhaps because of difficult pitches, perhaps because of better plans from bowlers, nothing is working for him. His troubles against spin show more apparent signs of Father Time at work. His perception of length against spin has never been as off as it was during the New Zealand home series.Perhaps the way his luck has been distributed has been harsh in recent times. Luck is not the opposite of skill. Every batter needs some luck. Perhaps Kohli had an inordinate amount of it during his peak and has little of it now.Whatever the reason for the decline of his game outside off may be, in not exploring his back-foot game is where Kohli differs from India’s previous No. 4. Not only did Sachin Tendulkar have a more complete and all-round game, he also reinvented it in order to keep scoring runs at an advanced age, even if in a less dashing manner.
Arguably, Kohli never was a super-efficient back-foot player, but equally he wasn’t always a batter with no scoring options on the off side off the back foot. He probably needs to dismantle his game and put it back together again to make it serviceable for modern challenges. That might involve playing days cricket outside the Test level, which he has rarely done once he became a certainty in the India Test side. In the second half of his 30s, with a young family, it will take another level of obsession if he is to invest his time off in domestic cricket.Or perhaps Kohli can choose to bank on the good batting tracks that have been the hallmark of England’s home Tests under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes. After all, he is still extremely efficient at driving away from the body when the ball doesn’t seam away. It will eventually come down to his understanding of his own game and what the selectors want from him.As things stand, Kohli stands 770 short of 10,000 Test runs. He averages 46.8, which is way better than the overall average of No. 4s – 40.6 – in Tests that he has played. He will definitely go down as a great Test batter, one who actively sought out tough pitches as a captain so that his bowlers could take 20 wickets, but the greatness credit is running out. His place in the side is now coming into question. This year will decide if he has the kind of Indian summer India’s last No. 4 did.
