Virat Kohli is a champion batsman and a true legend when it comes to chasing especially in big matches. The India-Pakistan T-20 World Cup match held on 23rd October 2022 in the iconic Melbourne cricket ground bears testimony to that. No one thought India had any chance in that match, but Virat Kohli had different idea. He single-handedly won that match for India when nobody believed that India stood any chance of winning that match. Virat’s knock was one of the best innings one would ever witness in a T-20 match, and this was not the first time that he had won matches for the country chasing huge targets, but that was 2022 and a lot has happened in the last two years.
Virat’s priority it seems is no longer Cricket. He has relocated to London with his family to avoid the mayhem that follows him in India wherever he goes. He wants to lead a peaceful life away from the fans and press. That is his choice, but if he spends majority of his time away from the country then it gets difficult to acclimatise to Indian weather and playing conditions. India plays almost half of its total international matches at home and it is never easy to adjust instantly even for someone of Virat’s ability. Virat has been performing consistently for the country and between 2016-2019 his statistics was superhuman. In Test Matches he scored 16 centuries in 45Test Matches meaning a century in roughly every three matches that he played. His ODI record was as staggering. During this period he scored 4500 runs at an average of over 80 and scored 21 centuries. He also became the fastest batsman to score 10,000 ODI runs, breaking the previous record held by the great Sachin Tendulkar.
Also in 2016 he became the third player to score three double hundreds in a calendar year after Don Bradman and Ricky Ponting. He was in a league of his own and there was no one in the current crop of players who could match his run machine statistics. But that was then.
After that Virat could never match his 2016 record and that was no surprise as 2016 was extremely difficult if not impossible to replicate.
Things were pretty good for Virat till 2019, but after that suddenly his form dipped and he started to struggle for runs. All big players go through this phase but astonished everyone was how long this phase lasted for Virat. From 2020-2022 Virat did not score any century in Test Match, and could only manage a single century in ODIs. Virat was struggling both as a player and captain. Towards the end of 2021 Virat was removed as captain as the Board felt that the captaincy pressure was taking a toll on Virat’s performance and also because India had failed to win any big tournament under his captaincy.
Rohit took over the captaincy from Virat and he gave the confidence to Virat that his place in the team is secure under his captaincy. This had a positive impact on Virat and he played a magnificent innings against Pakistan in the T-20 world cup in 2022. This was the beginning of Virat Kohli finding his touch towards the end of 2022. In 2023 ODI World Cup Virat was the top scorer with 765 runs. Nobody in the history of the game has scored this much runs in any edition of the World Cup. The country was ecstatic that the old Virat was back but that was not to be.
In 2024 Virat is again struggling for form. In the T-20 world Cup held in West Indies that India won Virat could not score in any match barring the final match. Also in the One Day series that followed against Sri Lanka he could only manage 58 runs in three innings at an average of 19.57. In the Test Series that is currently taking place against Bangladesh Virat failed in both the innings in the first Test. What intrigued the fans was that why Virat did not take DRS when he was wrongly given out LBW by the umpire when he had clearly nicked the ball. One thing that has also cropped up in his game is his inconsistency as a fielder. Virat had set big standards in fitness and he was one of the best fielders of the team, but now it is not uncommon to see Virat drop a catch.
It is not that everything is lost. He might score a century in the second test against Bangladesh but does Virat still have enough fuel left to dominate the game like he used to.? Only time will tell.
