Has the King Lost his Crown?
Is Virat Kohli finished? One of the most buzzing topics in today’s times and my take on it. So I might be biased here being a huge Kohli fan but I will try to keep it neutral.
The Indian captain has not scored a century since November 2019 which is awfully long for a man who has 70 international centuries under his belt. Obviously there was no cricket played for more than six months due to covid-19 but skipper Kohli has had quite a dry run. He did get into the 60s,70s and 80s a number of times but uncharacteristically could not breach the three figure mark. “Virat Kohli’s success does not surprise you his failures do,” a statement by a commentator during a match.
There is no denying that Virat Kohli is the greatest batsman of this generation, actually in my opinion all time and the stats agree too because he is the only batsman in the top 5 of all the rankings and he averages 50+ in all 3 formats of the game which is absolutely ridiculous! Virat is not just a player he is a brand who has spread cricket over the world and pulled more and more people towards the sport. All the great players have had a slump in their form, Sachin Tendulkar did not score a century for 17 months once and that pattern is common even with Rahul Dravid, Ricky Ponting and many other masters of the game. Such are the standards set by Virat that the people are disappointed even if he scores a fifty. While everybody is very happy with any other player scoring a half century, they want more from Kohli and understandably so, he has won us so many games single handedly. Though he has not been scoring centuries, fifties are a common occurrence, he scored 7 fifties in 22 matches in the past year which is also not very great according to his standards. One thing I can notice is that his hunger for runs has not diminished, it’s just that his impeccable conversion rate has gone down.
The energy, the passion, the aggression and the way he goes about his business is still the same, he is still the RUN MACHINE. Nobody can even come close to him as a batsman, he is just perfect for all formats the way he switches modes from playing a match winning T20 knock and then going out the next match to play a gritty test innings is a fantastic ability. He competes with legends in different formats like there is Steve Smith and Joe Root in tests, Rohit Sharma and perhaps Williamson in ODIs and Aaron finch and Babar Azam in t20s.
There is an aura about him which excites the fans and scares the opposition, when you see Virat Kohli play a picture perfect cover drive it’s time to make popcorn and make yourself comfortable to see a masterclass.
It is a fact that he hasn’t been at his best for the last couple of years in all formats but he is surely the best in the business and will be back with a bang. The runs haven’t dried up, its just the centuries.
The discussion on his captaincy is a totally different one but India has won the test mace 5 consecutive times and I don’t think it is a fair argument to compare IPL success to the international arena Also as a team we are one of the top ranked in all formats. A blemish on his captaincy is that we have not won an ICC trophy under him but hopefully that will change soon with the World Test Championship Final and the T20 world cup arriving soon.
Also it seems Kohli is back in form considering his match winning performances in the recent India vs England series for which he was awarded the man of the series, averaging a phenomenal 115! Hopefully he will get his mojo of scoring centuries in every other game back.
A lesson to take from this is that not milestones(scoring 100s) but contributing for the team is important.
Is Virat Kohli finished?? NO WAY
