Virat Kohli is now just a few months shy of completing thousand days without a century in any format of the game. The former India skipper couldn't find his lost touch in the recently-concluded fifth and final Test against England in Birmingham as well, having made a combined 31 runs across the two innings at Edgbaston. While he made 11 in India's first essay before being bowled by Matthew Potts, in the second he looked good at the crease but received unplayable from England captain Ben Stokes to lose his wicket for 20. Virat Kohli's continuing streak of low scores, which shows no signs of ending, however, is due to a flaw in his technique, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar revealed.
Sunil Gavaskar claimed that Virat Kohli was unable to make a big score in the rescheduled Test at Edgbaston as he was trying to meet the ball as early as possible with the bat.
Sunil Gavaskar mentioned that to succeed in English conditions, one needs to play the ball late and here Virat Kohli was making a big mistake as he was not allowing the deliveries to come to him.
“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 summed up.
On the other hand, England pacer Darren Gough backed Virat Kohli to be back among the runs soon.
“I want him to get back scoring hundreds. We have seen Joe Root used to go through that spell – a lot of 70s, 80s and 90s. But I feel that with Virat, once he gets one, he would just keep going – hundred, hundred, hundred. And that’s what Joe Root has done. Virat is going though that spell and he just needs to score that first one and then he is going to cash in for the next 3-4 years,” Darren Gough told Cricket.com.
Till 2019, Virat Kohli was tipped to break Sachin Tendulkar’s world record of scoring 100 tons in international cricket as he had already hit 70 hundreds by then. But the wait for his 71st three-figure score seemed to have become endless now.
Despite his 31-month lull, Virat Kohli has extraordinary numbers in ODIs, having struck 43 centuries in the 50-over format. Tendulkar, on the other hand, has 49 hundreds to his name in One-Day Internationals.
Though Virat Kohli’s comparisons with Sachin Tendulkar have disappeared in recent days, Darren Gough revealed that when he first saw the current talisman of the Indian cricket team, he had compared him with the Little Master.
“When I first saw him playing in England, I thought, WOW… I thought Tendulkar was good. He was brilliant, a genius in fact, but this guy Virat Kohli is right up there with him. Amazing player, such style, aggression… everything I wanted to look for in a cricketer. He can take on the short ball, good against spin. He has got that arrogance, puts the cap on as well now and again,” Darren Gough concluded.
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.
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