Virat Kohli 2.0
The great batter is no longer a dominant force. And he respects it. It’s time we did too.
It wasn’t like the time when he went on a toss-losing spree and gesticulated his RCB teammates the exact number of occasions he has now lost it. That was purely sarcastic. Funny. This was a mixed bag. The punch in the air was exuberant, the grin on the face so amusing it got even the Zen in the commentary box laughing. Hilarious. But the feeling the moment inspired was equally one of sympathy, a sense of sadness and without overreading, perhaps gave away the state of mind Virat Kohli operates with these days.
The moment concerned is his first boundary in the middle after grinding his way to an unbeaten 25 off 80 balls in Dominica. Kohli’s eyes couldn’t have lit-up wider seeing a rare ‘hit-me’ ball from an otherwise steady, accurate and pragmatic Jomel Warrican, who had tied him up at the stump line with multiple close-in fielders and varying pace until that point.
Unleashing that famous cover drive after reaching the pitch of it, Kohli hammered it along the turf for a four. As he walked back to his mark, the expressive cricketer glanced at the dressing room, punched the air, waved his hand and wore the broadest possible grin on his face.
The world laughed in that moment; Kohli was laughing at himself. The most confident people are able to indulge in self-deprecating humour. But this was a great batter being okay to feel embarrassed, acknowledging and respecting his downfall from invincibility.
Kohli’s next boundary came off his 124th ball. He made just five in all off 182 balls, in between reaching one of his slowest fifty. There were two drop catches on 40 and 72. No sixes. A strike-rate of 41.75 after spending 262 minutes. Such a knock would usually speak of struggle. But his 76 was equally a significant contribution, a marathon of patience, restraint and self-denial, which underlined a transformation that we on the outside haven’t given its due attention and respect.
If we only told ourselves that our icons aren’t supposed to age and decline, and stayed caught up with a sad narrative when they’re no longer capable of fulfilling our humongous expectations, we’ll live in delusion and never be able to truly appreciate the triumph of human spirit that a sportsperson’s return from fall to grace evokes. Excellence is not to be belittled but it’s often easier to reach there when you’re at the peak of your prowess and tougher to prevail and succeed when you’re struggling. Former is raved over, latter is seldom appreciated. Comeback is always greater than the rise and the setback.
But unlike us, great Test cricketers realize this early. They know their fall from pedestal is imminent. It’s why, they relish struggle after certain age; prefer grind over inconsequential fluency. The process is followed even more rigorously. More hours are put into fitness and net sessions than ever. There is a sense of stubbornness still. But in that zone, it’s the determination and pragmatism that starts driving them more than plain ambition.
That broad grin was therefore one of a cricketer, who is mindful of the current state of his game and willing to let himself look ugly for the team, even take fun at his own expense and accept grind as his most fluent run-scoring means on a dry pitch with inconsistent bounce. The word is key. Acceptance doesn’t come naturally to those who’ve been carving out possibilities for a living. Doing the unimaginable and creating an appetite for it. Kohli is no longer a dominant force and he admirably respects it.
This is Kohli 2.0 we’re watching these days in Test cricket. A great batter no longer able to retain absolute wood over oppositions that once happened by default. But being fine with it, for with age and maturity a sense of acceptance has seeped into his system. Great batters are built differently. There is ego. Undeniably. But great batters have over the years shown willingness to forge long battles when undergoing deepest strife, ready to bide time in the middle and completely abandon ideas and strokes that may act as barriers to their goals and ambitions. It’s as if those are the phases of their careers and innings they put an even bigger prize to their wicket and are willing to make incredible sacrifices for it.
Sachin Tendulkar’s 241* at the SCG has attained epic and larger than life proportions over time despite a flat pitch and understrength Australian attack. But it wasn’t a knock remarkable just because Tendulkar didn’t play the cover drive. It’s legendary because it concerned the most complete batter of the game absolutely denying himself a productive stroke as his main response to dismissals earlier in the series. Ego pulled side. Error accepted. And the word ‘grind’ drilled into his psyche above intent. An extremely difficult transition to make for a player of unparalleled class and range. If you only looked around, you wouldn’t find a challenge; but focus on that man in the middle, and within his two ears, Tendulkar was waging a battle for the ages. A battle with himself.
Kohli neither has the technique as tight nor the backfoot range as sufficient as Tendulkar. But if it boils down to mind over matter, he has been admirably willing to fight those battles with himself in this phase. His career span can be divided into pre and post-pandemic phases. A near-invincible force in his pomp, Kohli was able to exert his dominance even at the fag end of the pre-Covid times, essentially the start of the bowling era in 2018–19. But the deeper he entered the unprecedented challenge, attacks of unmatched depth and quality have tended to expose those chinks in his armoury more frequently. They’re so well documented. But this piece isn’t about Kohli’s technique, which I’ve written at length about and highlighted ever so often. It’s about us acknowledging a remarkable change in his overall approach and why it’s perfectly fine if Virat Kohli has changed.
Before the cricket world learnt of the virus, isolation, saliva ban, and bio-security bubbles, Kohli made his runs at an average of 54.97 and strike-rate of 57.81. Since the pandemic arrived, he has a strike-rate of 45.33 with an average of 32.75, which, too, is a result of upheaval from two centuries in his last five innings. At the end of the Indore Test in March, Kohli’s post Covid average stood at 25.70 with a strike-rate of 43.01 across 23 Tests and 41 innings.
That’s two completely different species put one-on-one. A fall from esteemed standards to such an alarming degree is reflective of the shackles relentless attacks have managed to exert on Kohli. But his rate of scoring also marks his general response to the phenomena at hands on difficult surfaces home and away. Kohli has been willing to leave and defend more balls without losing patience and taking the aggressive route.
Now, not all risks are the same: even the bat face opened slightly to the line just outside the off-stump on a low-bounce pitch or the one moving sideways, is risk. A defensive prod to spin with the foot planted across and front-pad falling in line of the ball, is big risk. It need not be an exaggerated cover drive, and yes, Kohli has been guilty of falling for it on occasions even through this phase, which does fuel perceptions. But this is not as stubborn an individual as I believed. Kohli has been willing to play the stump line and apply hours of concentration there without taking excess risks to disrupt the bowler’s rhythm.
As many as 74.8% of all balls Kohli has faced post 2020 in Tests have been dot balls; the corresponding number for the era before stood at 68.6%. He struck 46.61% of his runs via fours and sixes in the earlier phase; now finds boundaries for a proportion of 44.5% to his innings. When Kohli committed to the same method in his next innings after Dominica on a flatter and slower pitch in Trinidad, his 121 off 206 came with 95% control but included 135 dot balls and just 11 fours. Likewise, the 186 off 364 on a placid Ahmedabad surface. It came with 92% control. But also just 15 fours. No sixes. And 245 dot balls. Even on a livelier pitch at The Oval for the World Test Championship final, when Starc was spraying it in the second innings, Kohli had looked in good control for his 49 off 78, but made 28 of those in boundaries, facing a high percentage of dot balls.
That’s an unusual combination, for historically, a great batter in control would be prerequisite for minimum dot balls. In effect, it shows the unrelenting nature of the opposition attacks and bowling quality Kohli has been facing at this stage of his career. An unwavering threat, which keeps plugging away without offering him breathing space in an era where Test championship points dictate the nature of the pitches. Kohli has had no choice but to respect this phenomena and stand resolute in the face of it.
What hasn’t helped with the scores then is his technical limitations and diminished range, a byproduct of standing a foot outside the popping crease and then entering an exaggerated front press. Kohli almost has no backfoot strokes to offer to the off-side unless the ball is decisively short. Since he is constantly moving forward with his weight, he ends up responding with a full-length stroke to balls that would be played off the backfoot by batters with the traditional stance. Kohli pushes at balls Tendulkar would leave or punch from the backfoot with a greater sighting of the lateral movement behind the delivery.
An adverse effect of this technique is you ‘feel’ the ball is closer to you than it is: why, he has been out playing that cover drive off the seventh stump line. Notably, there has been a return to ‘England 2014’ in this regard with Kohli. Back then, in the aftermath of the disastrous tour, he said he realized he was being overly concerned about the balls coming in and not covering for the away movement. 7 of Kohli’s 10 dismissals on that tour came off the outside edge. He kept playing for the one coming in before the lateral movement did its trick.
Since 2020, only 17 of Kohli’s 45 Test match dismissals have been either bowled or LBW versus all bowlers. Of the rest 28, against seamers alone, 10 have been caught-wk and nine through to the slip cordon. The effects of one have been interwined with the other, underlining an improper hip-rotation, as ‘Flighted Leggie’ got down explaining with one of his finest works in this clip before the 2021 England series.
A course correction to his hip-rotation and balance at the crease before travelling to Australia in 2014–15 fetched Kohli his first great peak that lasted until the 2018–19 Indian home season. It gave him significant results against swing in particular, which helped him establish his greatness in England four years after melting under the threat of away movement.
This success curve would explain why Kohli would be so convinced within his head over this technique and method. But then came that brief two-Test tour of New Zealand in early 2020. It could now be recalled as a series of understated influence on Kohli’s career. The Kiwi seamers consistently troubled Kohli on the inside edge. Tim Southee and Colin de Grandhomme even got him LBW at Christchurch. That got Kohli ticking about a chink reappearing in his arsenal. He started feeling wary of the inward movement and lost sight of the away going balls.
The next time Southee bowled at Kohli was at the WTC final in June 2021 in Southampton and he instantly got the right-hander worried for the inswing. The LBW in the first-innings off Jamieson didn’t help. The hip-rotation and his balance went for a toss, and in the very next innings, you had Kohli flashing one well outside the off-stump to wicketkeeper BJ Watling. A return to mean with that misaligned backward rotation has since directly accentuated the flaws of Kohli’s forward press and frontfoot stance.
The hip-rotation might be re-corrected, but Kohli is possibly too far down the road with this technique to revisit it completely and restore pre-2014 parity to his stance aged 34. What he has done wisely then is to rethink his approach and intent in the middle. Focusing on devising a method that allows him to survive long enough at the crease by abandoning risks while we accuse him of not doing enough to put the pressure back to the bowlers, not realising that the quality of the attacks on offer and nature of tracks has dictated caution above aggression and any attempt to force them off their lengths is only flirting with risks and inviting greater assault against Kohli’s weaknesses.
Kohli being able to cut down risks and batting long at the cost of his strike-rate had been a bargain in the waiting for quite some time. As fans we worry about him losing command, but the Indian team would any day take their experienced head standing at the crease and outlasting the opposition eventually to make an impact and contribution. It’s absolutely alright for Kohli to be 64* off 150 as opposed to 35 off 50 and out, sitting on the sidelines, and unable to influence the game. You’d rather have him play like Dominica and produce such knocks consistently than averaging in the mid twenties with a higher rate of scoring.
It’s something we need to drill into our conscience as much Kohli has installed into his mindset in this period. An average Kohli pre-pandemic knock lasted 88.3 deliveries with a strike-rate touching 58; in the most Covid world, he has batted at a tempo of 45.33 but lasted nearly 71 balls per innings in the middle despite an evident decline in his productivity and the rising depth of opposition attacks.
Over time, Kohli might be able to expand his wings with this method by triggering greater sense of frustration among bowlers and fetching more loose balls. Especially on tracks with modest sideways movement. A wise move to No.5 would help equally. But it’s high time we trim down our expectations of him, just like he probably has, and respect the state of an ageing batter in his twilight rather than carrying the image of an impregnable force he was at his peak and feeling letdown when he is not able to deliver those feats. He is no longer the indomitable cricketer he was in his prime and he knows it; this is Kohli 2.0.
