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Business News/ News / Business Of Life/  Greatness will have to wait
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Greatness will have to wait

Once the standard for consistency, Virat Kohli suddenly finds himself struggling to score

Virat Kohli. Photo: Ian Kington/AFPPremium
Virat Kohli. Photo: Ian Kington/AFP

OTHERS :

In the second innings of the fifth Test last week at the Oval, UK, which India lost to England by an innings and 244 runs, Virat Kohli reached double figures for the first time in four innings. It was a desperate attempt to save face, both for himself and his team, as he fought hard for 80 minutes at the crease.

“This tour is right up there with South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. I would say these are the four places where subcontinental players do want to perform well," Kohli had said before the series. “I too have that in my mind. I have some goals I want to achieve, and I have been thinking about them."

In the five Tests since, he has scores of 1, 8, 25, 0, 39, 28, 0, 7, 6 and 20, averaging 13.40, his lowest ever in any Test series. If the two tour games against Leicester and Derbyshire are considered as well, he is the only Indian batsman not to get a 50 on this tour (apart from Rohit Sharma, who played just one Test at Southampton).

His confidence has slumped and his technique is suddenly suspect. That showed through most vividly in the second innings at the Oval when Kohli got out in a bizarre fashion. He tried to flick a full-pitched delivery on middle stump towards mid-wicket and the ball swerved away late to take an edge straight to first slip.

It began with expectation; perhaps too much of it for his first tour of England.

“Kohli has the ability to take the game away from the opposition in a single innings. He came into this series with a lot of expectations, even more than those of Cheteshwar Pujara," says former England skipper Andrew Strauss. “People expected him to be the standout player for India but it just hasn’t happened. He has got out to some good bowling. Not to mention that he threw away his wicket against Moeen Ali at Southampton."

That “good bowling" bit also pertains to a certain ploy England used against Kohli in the Test series in 2012-13 at home when he was just beginning to climb the batting charts. In three Tests back then—at Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Kolkata—fielders were placed at extra cover, cover and mid-wicket whenever he came to bat, sometimes in close-catching positions, as England looked to stifle his scoring. They were successful until he countered this tactic on a low-bounce pitch at Nagpur with a resilient hundred.

Back then, Kohli had deemed that century a great learning curve. Worryingly though, it wasn’t of any help in this series as England repeated that tactic; only this time they were aided by the extra bounce from pitches here. They bowled a nagging off-stump line to Kohli, cutting his scoring options to a minimum. James Anderson made a bunny of the batsman, getting him out four times in the series in near-similar fashion, flashing outside the off stump and caught at slips.

“When a batsman doesn’t get runs, it isn’t as simple as saying that he got out," says former English fast bowler Steve Harmison. “There is a second side to it. Kohli looked in good nick earlier in the series but England bowled very well at him so that even when he got a start he has found a way to get out."

Kohli’s touch deserted him to such an extent that there was a certain inevitability every time Anderson ran in to bowl to him. When it proved to be so at Manchester, former England skipper Nasser Hussain described on air on Sky Sports how a certain flaw had crept into Kohli’s technique. “The batsman’s stance is very side-on, almost ready to play the drive as he would on a subcontinental pitch, and not front-on to play the swinging ball," he said.

A five-Test series crammed into 40-odd days doesn’t give batsmen enough time to work out such chinks in their armour. At best minor changes can be made, but does an out-of-sorts batsman have the confidence to try them out at the crease in the heat of the moment? This is where the role of coach Duncan Fletcher comes into focus.

“You hope that Fletcher is helping out the batsmen given his vast knowledge and experience, but with such a regularity of dismissals, it seems that this is something not even in his control," says Vijay Dahiya, a former Indian wicketkeeper and Kohli’s one-time coach at the Delhi Ranji team. “When a batsman starts getting out in similar ways every time, it becomes a mental block more than it becomes a technical issue.

“This is where discipline comes in. This is what great batsmen like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid did. If there was a certain shot or certain mode of dismissal that troubled them, they were mentally tough to counter those situations and avoid getting out in that manner again."

Everyone remembers how Tendulkar cut out his cover drive during that epic 241-run knock against Australia in Sydney (2003-04). Dravid’s singular answer to his problems—when any arose—was to leave everything that need not be hit, and then leave some more. It is not that Kohli hasn’t tried. Earlier in the series, he worked hard against the moving ball off a good length. Later, he tried changing his batting stance, even playing more front-on in the Oval Test. It just didn’t work.

Now, with the series done and dusted, and many reputations in tatters, Kohli will look to pick up the pieces next week when the five-match One Day series gets under way.

But every single time there is a comparison between him and the many great Indian batsmen of the past the bitter taste of this failure will linger.

Chetan Narula is the author ofSkipper: A Definitive Account Of India’s Greatest Captains

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Published: 20 Aug 2014, 09:10 PM IST
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