The year is 2016 and Virat Kohli is touching stratospheric peaks with his stellar performances in the IPL. One of the high points of his batting is how quickly he is picking the length against the spinners. Four strokes in particular still flash in the mind: A couple of cut shots off Gujarat Lions’ Shivil Kaushik; one through the point region and another that flies over the cover fielder.
Then a dance down the deck while being up against Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Ankit Sharma. The resultant outcome was Kohli pinching a double. In the same innings, Kohli also essays a stylish loft off Karn Sharma. The keynote to all those shots was Kohli gauging the length early, This allowed him that little bit of extra time on his hands to essay the shot of his choice. In simple words, he was creating his own length.
That was Kohli at the peak of his prowess. Somewhere in 2025, the current version of Kohli seems like a long-lost twin brother of the batter who was depositing the spinners to all corners of the ground and supplementing it with singles and twos. In particular, leg-spinners and slow left-arm orthodox spinners who take the ball away from the right-hander have troubled him enough times.
Here’s an interesting stat related to the above-mentioned lines: Since the commencement of 2024, Kohli has compiled only 31 runs off 51 deliveries while facing leg-spin in ODIs. In that phase, he has also been dismissed five times by leg-spinners. In this context, we have to talk about the rule of nature: Our reflexes and body movements slow down with age. At the age of 36, it is difficult to expect Kohli to play like the younger version from almost a decade ago.
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Kohli was seen stabbing at deliveries while facing Adil Rashid in the recently concluded ODI rubber versus England. And subsequently losing his wicket to the same bowler. Or for that matter finding the fielder at backward point while attempting the cut in India’s Champions Trophy opener versus Bangladesh perhaps exemplifies the point that Kohli isn’t able to use the depth of the crease like he used to. Kohli’s woes could also be because of thinking too much about how to chart a way against his bugbear – leg-spin and left-arm spin. He is probably putting too much pressure on himself to manoeuvre the ball into gaps.
So, is there no hope of Kohli emerging the winner in this particular match-up? Who knows? He can perhaps still surprise his critics. In last year’s IPL, after being kept quiet by SRH’s Shahbaz Ahmed, the left-arm spinner, and Mayank Markande, the leg-spinner, he roared back to form versus GT. The opponent had fine spinners in the ranks – Rashid Khan, Noor Ahmed and Sai Kishore. But Kohli crunched lofts, sweeps, and the occasional cut to end up with a 44-ball 70.
One of the features of Kohli’s batting in that innings was how he made room by moving towards the leg-side of the ball to cut Rashid to the boundary boards. This is a fine example of a batter manufacturing his own length to disrupt the bowler’s rhythm. A caveat has to be added here: The conditions in Ahmedabad were very much batting-friendly. However, that impressive innings told us that Kohli still had enough ability to navigate through his spin woes.
In the ongoing Champions Trophy, opponents will continue to use leg-spinners and left-arm spinners as a match-up against Kohli. The Indian mainstay has to somehow locate an erase button in his mind and forget all those previous dismissals, and play with an uncluttered mind. Easier said than done.
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