In a race against time, the Zimbabwe ODIs could have been a good chance for Virat Kohli to get some of his run-making mojo back, writes Aadya Sharma.
Three days ago, Virat Kohli’s Twitter handle – which, more often than not runs like a commercial account – posted a picture of him casually speaking on a cellphone at a train platform. “My favourite shade of blue,” read the caption, sparking speculation among bored fans that it was more than just an advert for the blue-coloured phone.
Maybe the caption was for the denim jacket. Or for the light-blue jeans. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the blue India kit that Kohli was missing.
Since the T20 World Cup last year, plenty has changed in Indian cricket, as it has with Kohli. Once the engine of the entire team, and the leader whose values were heavily implanted in the team’s spirit, Kohli’s now just another batter. He might still be a world-beater, but we’ve barely seen evidence of it over the last couple of years. Kohli’s batting highlights were worthy of documentaries before. They’ve now turned into TikToks. The 15-second kind.
In such a scenario, there are only so many ways you can deal with the slump. Either you send the player back to domestic cricket, to fix any technical flaws and help get his confidence back. Or you keep him in the side, motivating and hoping that he comes good. Or, you keep him away from the game, allowing him to switching off from the sport for a bit.
Now, it’s unlikely that Kohli will do the first bit: he’s too big for domestic cricket, and the season itself will begin only in September. He last played a Ranji Trophy game in November 2012, not been seen in Vijay Hazare Trophy since February 2010, and has – and probably never in his career will – featured in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, his spectacular international career never granting the time or need. As for the last one, Kohli has skipped series against New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Africa, missed the tour of the Caribbean, and now will not travel to Zimbabwe. All since November last year.
The Zimbabwe tour could have been an opportunity. This is not to discount Zimbabwe. There is no such thing as an easy international fixture, with Zimbabwe’s qualification for the T20 World Cup and victory today over Bangladesh a reminder of their quality. And Kohli has more often than not seemed like he’s fighting his own demons rather than the opposition. But playing against the world’s 15th-ranked side wouldn’t be a modern great’s biggest challenge, and it would have given Kohli a good chance nonetheless. To snap into form. Make runs for the sake of runs, warm your heart, get the gears into motion. It doesn’t have to be pretty. But it could do the job for you.
ODI cricket is arguably Kohli’s best format. He’s not rushed to act, like in T20Is, or presented with phases of play that really put him into a shell, like Tests. Not that he’s not a great player in either of the other two formats, but one-dayers really give him the window to play the game at his own pace more often than not. It’s also where he’s fared decently even since the dry run hit him hard. In his last 20 innings, all since the beginning of January 2020, Kohli averages 36.75 in the format with nine fifties – the second-most by an India batter in the period. It’s also easy to forget that he’s still the fifth-ranked ODI batter in the world. He needs to play more of those.
With the T20 World Cup fast approaching, and its bigger brother slated to be held next year, time is running out for Kohli to rediscover his lost touch. There’s a long list of batters waiting to pack the middle order, all of them younger than Kohli, and almost all of them in better form. If he indeed requested a break, or is working on a technical tweak, it’s understandable. But Kohli might be better off making those short trips and getting runs in his bank. Times were different, but even an out-of-form Sachin Tendulkar returned to the Ranji Trophy at 39, just to click back into form. For Kohli, the equivalent could have been through one of the short white-ball tours.
A probable reason is the short window between the Zimbabwe tour and the Asia Cup in the UAE, with roughly a week’s gap between the third game in the African nation, and what could be India’s first fixture in the yet-to-be-released schedule for the multi-nation contest. The great man probably knows best: not for nothing has he amassed over 23,000 international runs. And if he does bring his A-game to the fore in the bigger competitions, against mightier opposition – as he’s made a legacy out of – nothing would be more pleasing. It doesn’t stop you from thinking though: maybe, time’s running out quick, and easy runs can never hurt you.
India’s squad for the Zimbabwe ODIs: Shikhar Dhawan (c), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shubman Gill, Deepak Hooda, Rahul Tripathi, Ishan Kishan (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Avesh Khan, Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj, Deepak Chahar.
