Virat Kohli: A master burdened by his shortcomings

Things were alright for Virat Kohli in 2019. He closed out the year with a sublime 136 in a day-night home Test, putting a masterclass on countering consistent seam movement, which affirmed he was at the peak of his powers.

With that knock, Kohli averaged 54.98 in 84 Tests, the highest for any active Indian batter with more than 1,000 runs. 27 Test hundreds — that’s a hundred every third or fourth Test. Kohli was cracking Test cricket with flying colours.

Five years down the line, he has added only two more hundreds to his tally. He has averaged under 30 in four of the last five years. There has been a continuum of unfulfilled innings that has changed the outlook of his career from a world-beater averaging in the mid-50s to someone who might finish with a decent-at-best Test average in the mid-40s. 

In 33 Tests since 2020, Kohli averages 32.7 for his 1,833 runs. It is the fifth-lowest average for any batter in this span, with a minimum of 1,500 runs. The batters below him include Jermaine Blackwood, who hasn’t played for West Indies in over a year, Tom Blundell, a wicketkeeper batting lower down the order, and Zak Crawley, whose low average can be compensated for achieving a Bazball-esque strike rate in the 60s.  

For years, Kohli racked up runs at an unbelievable rate despite his game's vulnerabilities. Now, he is burdened by them. 

During this lull, Kohli has fared better against the weaker suit of bowling with respect to the conditions. In Asia, he averages higher against pace, even though the average of 39 on this criteria doesn’t infuse much confidence. Similarly, outside Asia, where Kohli has hardly faced spin (only 20% of his deliveries), he averages only 32.8 versus pace. 

It paints a clear picture of his struggle against the moving ball about which we spoke in detail in the aftermath of India’s WTC final defeat last year. 

Meanwhile, his average against spin in Asia is the lowest number in the above table, which involves two Tests in Bangladesh and 15 in India. 

A whopping 22 out of Kohli’s 27 dismissals in these 17 Tests have come against spin, with all of them accounting for finger-spin: 11 each for off-break and slow left-arm orthodox spinners. 

Overall, only Ravichandran Ashwin (23) has suffered more dismissals against spin and has a lower average than Kohli.

The former skipper’s travails against spin stem from an issue similar to his pace-bowling game — the perennial front foot stride which disables him from playing the ball late. In the off-spinner’s case, Kohli’s hard forward press means that he cannot smother the turn on the ball. As a result, seven of Kohli’s 11 dismissals against off-spin have come on the front foot. 

In the below graphic, Kohli has been out on front foot defence thrice, bowled through the gate once (by Moeen Ali in Chennai), and missed a flick twice. 

The 35-year-old averages only 27 playing off-spinners on the front foot while also struggling to score against them, bringing his runs at a strike rate of 44.7. 

Against left-arm spin, Kohli gets tied down on the back foot, falling seven times (again) — four lbws, three bowleds. As expected, there is a cluster of balls in line with the stumps, troubling him by either going straight or turning sharply across him. 

However, backfoot is where a right-hander is supposed to be more comfortable against left-arm spin. If you take Joe Root’s example, who would be an unfair comparison given his prowess against spin but still gives us a benchmark, he hasn’t been out to left-arm spin in Asia on the backfoot since 2020. 

Mind you, Root has faced more balls against left-arm spin in Asia in this time span - 804 in total as compared to Kohli's 577. Root has played 32.6% of them on the backfoot (Kohli 31.2%) and has zero dismissals, while Kohli has seven. Surprisingly, Kohli has a better average on the front foot than Root (Kohli 38.3, Root 34.1). So, it is the backfoot where he needs to fix his technique.

In fact, overall, Kohli has the lowest average against finger-spin on the back foot in Asia in these five years. Furthermore, the difference between Kohli and Mehidy Hasan Miraz is alarming.

In another contrast with Root not playing the sweep shot actively has also contributed to Kohli’s downfall against spin. Root has swept the ball 287 times in Asia since 2020 and Kohli only 13 times. The Delhi-born also doesn’t have an attacking game to subvert spin on turning tracks, like Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma or Axar Patel. 

With his shortcomings against both spin and pace surfacing, Kohli has played very few innings of substance. We aren't talking about his two hundreds here (186 in Ahmedabad and 121 in Trinidad) where the right-handed batter clearly restricted himself on tracks with less juice for the spinners. His 74 in Adelaide (2020), 79 in Cape Town (2022), 76 in Centurion (2023), and 46 in Cape Town again (2024) were more reassuring, given he fought it out in seam-friendly conditions overseas. 

However, such adjustments and vigil have been missing in his spin-bowling game in India. The closest such knock would be his 70 in the second innings of the Bengaluru Test, where Kohli was out on the last ball of Day 3, misjudging both the line and trajectory of a straighter one from Glenn Phillips. 

Kohli’s lull has now stretched for five years. The question arises: How long can he survive in the team with this form despite his superstar status? 

Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane averaged 32.7 and 32.9, respectively, in their five years before the management moved on from them. Kohli has similar numbers from 2020 onwards.

It was easy for the veteran to keep his place when the team was winning. India were constantly bailed out by Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel with both bat and ball to cover up the chinks in the batting armoury. Now, with the Men in Blue losing their first home series in 12 years, their spin game in disarray, and the next home series nearly 12 months away by when Kohli will be 37 years old, the murmurs around Kohli’s decline as a Test batter are louder than ever. 

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