Without the safety net of captaincy, Virat Kohli has his work cut out in bid to reclaim his status as India’s No 1 batter

Nowhere in India, and by extension the world, is Virat Kohli more admired, adored, respected and revered than in Bengaluru, the one-time Garden City which now doubles up as the IT capital of the country.

The former India captain is the only cricketer to have represented the same franchise in every edition of the Indian Premier League since its inception in 2008, and even though he hasn’t been able to carry Royal Challengers Bangalore to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, cricket lovers in the city are more than willing to forgive him that ‘minor’ failure.

Virat Kohli last scored a century in 2019 against Bangladesh. AP

As he has for nearly a decade and a half, Kohli had the Bengaluru crowd eating out of his hands over the weekend, during India’s pink-ball Test against Sri Lanka. Little he touched did not turn to gold; in the two innings, he produced efforts of 23 and 13, trapped in front both times by deliveries that admittedly did hug the turf on pitching, but which he might have been better served playing forward to rather than going right back.

The second of those modest scores pulled Kohli’s Test average down to 49.95, the first time since – ironically coincidentally, the away series in Sri Lanka in July-August 2017 – that it had dipped below 50. In isolation, that might not sound all that alarming. After all, 49.95 is hardly piddling, and especially when the corresponding numbers in 50-over internationals and T20 games for the country read 58.07 and 51.50 respectively. And yet, if eyebrows are being raised about Kohli’s form over the last two years – not the recent past alone, but a good 24 and a half months – it is obvious that the 33-year-old is in the middle of a concerning middling run that could exacerbate the focus on his diminishing returns.

Starting with the Test series in New Zealand in February-March 2020, Kohli’s returns are anything but edifying. In 17 Tests and 30 innings, he has managed a frugal 841 runs at an unflattering average of 28.03. His highest score in the six knocks in excess of fifty are 79, a painstaking, laborious, mind-over-matter compilation against South Africa in Cape Town this January. Kohli the Test batter has hit a definite roadblock, the authoritative figure between the ends of 2014 and 2019 having gone AWOL and a first international century since November 2019 still eagerly awaited.

Rohit Sharma, the new all-format captain, would have the world believe that Kohli would return to his sparkling best if the media were to leave him to his own devices. Given that the players go out of their way to let everyone, and his cousin, know that they don’t know what is written about them, that’s a little hard to digest. Since when did the media score/deny runs/wickets to/for cricketers?

Until the middle of January, Kohli had the safety net of a winning Indian captain to protect him from the thudding contact with the ground that Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane have experienced. Between them, this long-serving troika has managed a solitary Test hundred in the last 26 months, a development that has cost Pujara and Rahane their places in Test XI almost permanently, no matter what the decision-makers would have us believe.

If Kohli’s under-achievements have flown a little under the radar, it was because he was still delivering as a captain, his outstanding win percentage as skipper insulating him from the kind of criticism Pujara and Rahane have attracted.

Now, Kohli doesn’t have the luxury of walking a tightrope knowing that were he to stumble, he won’t be greeted by the hard, unforgiving embrace of terra-firma. Kohli is far too intelligent not to realise that for all their avowed desire to give players a long rope, Rohit and head coach Rahul Dravid will be grappling with the Kohli conundrum. The 33-year-old is too valuable an asset to be jettisoned summarily, but then again, how much of a long rope is too much?

There is no immediate threat to Kohli’s continued presence in Test XI, certainly not with just three more five-day face-offs scheduled for the next nine and a half months. And yet, each time Kohli fails to keep his tryst with a three-figure knock, the pressure will mount as much in his own mind as in the mind-space of the most significant stakeholders, the national selectors and the paying spectators.

There have been occasions in the last two and a quarter years when Kohli has looked a million dollars. There have been others when he has put his ego aside, allowed the bowlers to call the shots and protected his scalp with utmost determination. There have been, too, instances when he has appeared scratchy, diffident, uncertain and hesitant, which can be linked directly to the state of his mind rather than glaring loopholes in his stellar, admirable approach.

Kohli is more than just a specialist batter alone. He brings great energy to the park when the team is fielding, evolving into a competent if not spectacular slipper. No one is better equipped than him to rouse crowds anywhere in India – and often overseas – to shed their slumber and roar approbatively at his urgings. He is worth his weight in gold, but that comes with a rider. For all his pulling and influence-power, he is in the Test team, at the pivotal No 4 position, to score runs, handsomely and hugely. With a bunch of immensely talented young turks snapping at his heels and Kohli himself occasionally delivering his lines from iffy memory, who is to say the selectors will not be tempted to contemplate looking beyond the misfiring legend, never mind if he answers to the name of Virat Kohli.

Kohli might have an excellent IPL and back it up with tremendous scores in white-ball cricket, but for a man who places such value on the five-day game, his legacy will be shaped by what he does in Test matches. That requires a greater commitment to the cause and tackling the curveballs with an equanimity that isn’t alien to him, but which hasn’t necessarily been his calling card.

The next few months will dictate how the cricket world will regard Kohli. Runs can’t be scored warming the bench, but as Kohli has proved repeatedly, nothing stirs his competitive juices more than a challenge. And this is as big a challenge as any.

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