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 around 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 India camp forced
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 around 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 India camp forced the cancellation 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, 2022, 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 anymore.
He is not the captain of the side anymore. In his last Test match, 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 Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) after IPL 2021.
The timing of these decisions raised a lot of questions. The BCCI officials felt it would have been better to make the announcement after the T20 World Cup in November in 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 & 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 being there can’t be two separate captains for white-ball format.
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 abruptly resigning as the national side’s Test captain, after leading the team to several triumphs after taking over the reins from Mahendra Singh Dhoni after 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 as captain, as the reason 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 Indian team in Test and ODI cricket,” he said in his statement.
LOST BATTING FORM
The decision to relinquish the captaincy responsibility was tinged with the hope that it will see the resurgence of Kohli, the batter. It hasn’t, however, worked out as expected. As he prepares for the fifth Test, the halo around him 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 as the best of his generation. For a player who was expected to come closest to Sachin Tendulkar 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 ton came in November 2019, in India’s first pink-ball Test against Bangladesh at Kolkata.
AVERAGE BELOW 50
The greats have always maintained a career average of 50. Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid never let it plummet below this benchmark after they touched it.
In a career spanning 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 the 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 the IPL broadcaster, Star Sports. During India’s tour of England in 2014, he got just 134 in 10 innings at 13.40 with pacer James Anderson dismissing him four times in the five-match 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 of them 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 warmup game against Leicestershire XI (33 and 67), he will be feeling more confident going into the fifth Test. And, what better occasion than the final Test to make a statement! He has played such a big part in putting India on the verge of the series win, it will only be fitting if he seals it with a big hundred.
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