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It has been 89 innings across cricket's three formats, a stretch of 951 days, since Virat Kohli last made a century. The wait for his 71st hundred seems to have become eternal. Remarkably, scoring a ton was once a habit for him as he reached three figures every seventh time he went out to bat. But since November 2019, when he became the first Indian to complete a century in a Day-Night Test match in Kolkata, Virat Kohli's bat hasn't been listening to his commands. Even the 15th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) failed to bring his batting to life as he endured another lean patch in the tournament. Virat Kohli's disastrous IPL ended with only 341 runs to his name which came at a dismal average of 22.73 in 16 games. What's more, for the first time in his illustrious career, Virat Kohli was dismissed for golden ducks thrice in the same competition. His childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma has now broken his silence on his former ward's woeful run with the bat and has backed him to come good in the upcoming fifth Test against England at Edgbaston in Birmingham next month.
Rajkumar Sharma also spoke about Virat Kohli's rivalry with former England captain Joe Root who has been in extraordinary form of late.
In contrast to Virat Kohli, who hasn't made a hundred in 31 months, Joe Root has been in some serious form since January 2021. In the last year and a half, Joe Root has struck 10 Test hundreds to put himself at par with his great contemporaries Virat Kohli and Steve Smith. All three superstars now have 27 hundreds in the longest format.
In the ongoing three-Test series against the Kiwis, Joe Root has made 305 runs at an exceptional average of 101.67. He has also scored back-to-back hundreds in the first two matches, hitting a match-winning unbeaten 115 at Lord's before following it up with a delightful 176 at Trent Bridge in the next game.
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“Both are fantastic players. A healthy rivalry is always there at the back of the mind, that he has come close to you or has gone ahead of you, or you are close to the other person's record. You definitely think about it while sitting in the hotel or the dressing room,” Rajkumar Sharma told India News.
“You forget this rivalry when you go across the boundary line, then you only wait for the next ball and you have to see how to score your runs. You don't get Joe Root or anyone else in your mind.”
“But currently it is required for Virat to play his natural game and make a big score, which he is searching for for a long time. I have full hope that he will do that soon because it has been a long time,” said Sharma.
“It has not been seen often in Virat's entire career that he has such a long lean patch, in terms of triple figures, he has definitely scored runs otherwise, but his conversion rate was exceptional earlier, once he used to reach 30-35 runs, everyone used to believe that he will score big, a hundred will definitely be scored but lately that has not happened.”
Earlier, the legendary Kapil Dev had found “some fault” in the 33-year-old star batter's batting technique.
“I haven’t played cricket as much as Virat Kohli. But sometimes you may not have played enough cricket but you can look to figure things out. Either that, or we just cannot criticise such great players. We have played cricket and we understand the game and after that, they have to improve their thought process, not ours. If you prove us wrong, we will like it. If you don’t score runs, we feel there is some fault. We just see one thing and that’s your performance. And if the performance is not there, don’t expect people to stay quiet. Your bat and your performance should speak, nothing else,” Kapil Dev said on the YouTube channel Uncut.
“It pains me to see such a big player go through this a long gap (with regards to a century). He is like a hero to us. We never thought we would witness a player whom we can compare to Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag. But then they came, and forced us to compare and now since he hasn’t for the last two years, it is bothering me and all of us,” Kapil Dev pointed out.
Virat Kohli is currently playing in a tour game against Leicestershire where he has looked in good touch. Kohli batted patiently in the first 30 minutes of his knock in Leicestershire but has now moved to 21.
If he could stick around for a few more hours, a century could be round the corner. But that's a distant possibility right now.
