Former England captain Michael Vaughan has advised out-of-form star India batter Virat Kohli to take a sabbatical from cricket to rejuvenate his career. Michael Vaughan's comments came amid Virat Kohli's failure to find his lost touch in the recently concluded rescheduled fifth Test against England which India lost by seven wickets at Edgbaston. Virat Kohli, who has been woefully out-of-form for some time now, managed to put up scores of 11 and 20 in the two innings in Birmingham, thus extending his century drought to nearly a thousand days in international cricket.
That's why Michael Vaughan believes taking time away from the sport could prove to be the best remedy for Virat Kohli's prolonged slump with the bat.
“I look at Virat in particular. I knew he had a little bit of a rest at the end of the IPL. But he just looks to me like he needs a sabbatical. He looks like he needs three months away from cricket. Go and sit on a beach,” Michael Vaughan said during an interaction with Cricbuzz.
“Go and do what you can with your family because a career of 20 years, which he probably will end up getting because he's such a good player. To have a three months break, is it going to affect him? No. Will it help him? Yes,” he added.
Former India pacer Zaheer Khan also chipped in with his thoughts on Virat Kohli's lean patch across formats.
“Take any player for that matter and especially a player like Virat Kohli will surely be sad. Because he set a higher standard for himself. And the expectations that fans have for him…. Like we all know, who are the so-called fab four? Steve Smith, Joe Root, Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli. So, whenever somebody else scores, he is also being taken note of. Even if you are also saying that ‘see, Joe Root has scored, so Virat Kohli must also score.' So, that's how he is being compared,” Zaheer Khan said on Cricbuzz's Youtube channel.
“Obviously, by his very own standards, he would like to come back to that form that we haven’t seen for some time. He was looking good in the second innings, he just got out to a very good ball,” Zaheer Khan further said.
Virat Kohli wasn't included in India's playing XI in the first T20I against England in Southampton as the entire Test squad which competed against the Ben Stokes-led side stayed back in Birmingham where the second T20 match will be played on Saturday.
Beginning this weekend, Virat Kohli would have five matches, two T20Is, and 3 ODIs to regain form because failures in these matches could put his spot in the limited-overs side, especially in the shortest format of the game under considerable strain.
The BCCI has rested him from the upcoming ODI series against the West Indies.
Virat Kohli's continuing struggle for runs has been a subject of hot debate across cricketing circles and several former cricketers have come out with their versions of why he's not able to put up a big score on the board.
Joining them in this debate is former India captain Sunil Gavaskar who has noticed a major flaw in Virat Kohli's batting technique which he said was the main reason behind his failures on the pitch.
“The trick to play in England is to play as late as possible. Then you are allowing the ball to do its bit and then you are playing the ball. From what little I saw in the highlights, it seemed Kohli was looking to reach for the ball, trying to play the ball early,” Sunil Gavaskar said on Sports Today.
“Therefore, he was not looking like he was in 2018 when he was looking to play it very late around the off-stump.”
“But the first mistake he is making is turning out to be his last mistake. Maybe he is not having the run of the luck at the moment. I think you obviously plan a little bit, visualize what the bowler is going to do the next day. Therefore, you can stay outside the crease but you can go with a pre-meditated plan of batting, which means the bowler has to bowl the same line you are expecting,” he added.
“If he doesn’t bowl in those lines, you are in trouble. Cricket is always about instinctive action. And while you are giving yourself just that extra bit of preparation by trying to understand the bowler’s strengths, at the end of the day, it’s an instinctive game,” Sunil Gavaskar concluded.
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