Kohli’s IPL half-century a kick-start, but a form-turning knock is what he needs  

He looked at the pitch for a long second with intensity, scorn and suspicion, as if it were singularly responsible for what had happened. Then, with a mental shrug, he trudged off the park, shaking his head in disbelief after another seemingly promising start was nipped in the bud.

This hasn’t been the year of Virat Kohli in the Indian Premier League, not by a long way. After 11 stuttering efforts, his aggregate stands at an underwhelming 216, his strike-rate an even less edifying 111.91. For someone used to lording attacks of all varieties in the most daunting of conditions, these numbers must be particularly humbling.

Also read: Ups or downs, forever I will be with Bangalore, asserts Virat Kohli

Worryingly, there have been few indications that a turning of the corner is imminent. This is said with the rider that given the glorious uncertainties of cricket and Kohli’s standing as an immensely proud and uncompromising competitor, he could so easily set the competition afire the next time he comes out to bat. However, it isn’t so much the lack of runs alone that has been noticeable. Kohli has looked hesitant, diffident, uncertain, tentative, unsure and edgy – adjectives that have seldom been associated with him over the last decade and a half.

Wednesday’s dismissal at the MCA Stadium in Gahunje in Royal Challengers Bangalore’s victory over Chennai Super Kings is a case in point. Kohli had nurdled his way to 30 off 32 deliveries – that’s right, 30 off 32 – when he played all over and around a full ball from off-spinner Moeen Ali, in the 10th over of the innings. By then, it was clear that the Pune strip wasn’t a batting beauty, that there was grip and turn for the spinners and that they brooked careful watching. Kohli’s ambitious stroke-play under the circumstances was almost an open invitation to the ball to snake through the gaping gate and rattle timber. Even Ravi Shastri, the former head coach of the national team and one of Kohli’s staunchest supporters, acknowledged at the mid-innings show with the host broadcaster that this wasn’t the first time the one-time Indian captain had been dismissed in this fashion.

It wasn’t so much the dismissal – or its mode – alone that was significant. The events in the lead-up to that fateful piece of action pointed to slight mental turbulence, not all of it due to the mix-up that resulted in Glenn Maxwell’s run out. The customary Kohli fluency was conspicuous by its absence. The ball didn’t speed off his bat, nor did it always travel to that part of the ground where he intended it to go. It was as if the guy with the bat looked like Kohli, had imbibed all the Kohli mannerisms, but wasn’t quite Kohli when the ball was delivered, if you get what we are saying.

After a horrendous mid-season slump that fetched him just 22 runs in five innings including two golden ducks, Kohli seemed to be coming into his own with his first half-century of IPL 2022 in RCB’s game No. 10, against Gujarat Titans at the Brabourne Stadium last weekend. It was an essay that started with tremendous flourish – a punched off-drive in the first over off Mohammed Shami, followed by a wonderful flick a few deliveries later in his first avatar as opener this year. Ah, here we go, the vast legion of Kohli fans crooned, convinced their hero was emphatically going to turn the clock back. Alas. While he did battle his way to his first fifty of the season, it wasn’t the typically authoritative Kohli one has come to know and love. If anything, his knock lost momentum the deeper it went, and while it will be naïve and unfair to place the blame for RCB’s six-wicket loss at the altar of his 53-ball 58, it can’t be denied that RCB fell well short of a par total at a ground where the lowest successfully defended first-innings score was 180.

Faf du Plessis, the man who replaced Kohli at the helm of RCB affairs in the closed season, welcomed the half-century as one would expect a captain to, expressing the optimism that it could just be the kick-start his predecessor required. Wednesday’s laboured effort didn’t quite live up to that optimistic take, though the fact that RCB arrested a mini losing streak and moved back into the top four with their conquest of CSK should give the management group the breathing space that otherwise they might not have enjoyed.

So, where does Kohli go from here? RCB have at least three matches left this season, in the league phase. Should they take their place in the play-offs as they ought to, given the supreme quality at du Plessis’ disposal, they could have up to three further games in their quest for a maiden title. Despite his middling returns of this season, Kohli will continue to loom as a powerful, inspirational figure because he brings a lot more to the table than just his batting worth.

How willing or prepared RCB might be to continue to back a half guns blazing Kohli is a moot question. Despite evidence to the contrary, Kohli is still capable of turning it on. For all the immense scrutiny on him from the outer, Kohli’s harshest critic is the one who stares at him in the mirror. It is unlikely that Kohli will have reconciled to being one of many, because that is anathema to his personality. He has always thrived on being the first among equals, and no one will be more mindful of making a statement or three more than the virtuoso from Delhi who appears to be batting from poor memory.

Also read: Virat Kohli returns to form with 58 but Bangalore loses to Gujarat

His great mate and long-time comrade-in-arms at RCB, AB de Villiers, reiterated the other day that Kohli hadn’t gone overnight from being a very good batsman to a very bad one. True as that might be, it won’t be lost on anyone that Kohli doesn’t need platitudes or empathy as much as a form-turning knock, and presto. As the business end of the competition beckons, the stage is set for Kohli to channelise his inner angst and shed the shackles that seem to be weighing down body and mind. Were that to transpire, it won’t merely be the RCB fans who will be rejoicing.