Has time come to axe Kohli from T20 team? It's no longer a whisper

In their first 15 years in international Twenty20 cricket, India had three centurions – Rohit Sharma (four times), KL Rahul (twice) and Suresh Raina. In the last 15 days alone, they have added two more, Deepak Hooda (against Ireland) and Suryakumar Yadav (on Sunday against England).

It won’t be out of place to assert that seldom has India’s batting in the 20-over format looked stronger or more explosive. A side that has an outstanding record chasing but hasn’t always cracked the code to batting first is becoming more adept at setting targets, armed with a new philosophy warranted by their first-round elimination at the T20 World Cup last November and which has coincided with the emergence of the leadership group of Rohit and head coach Rahul Dravid.

That an attitudinal and structural revamp was desperately required became obvious from the ponderous approach against Pakistan and New Zealand in the UAE, when India forsake adventurism for conservatism, putting self-preservation ahead of taking the fight to the opposition. They shed their inhibitions in the final three matches against Afghanistan, Scotland and Namibia with spectacular results, and though the World Cup horse had bolted by then, the contours of a team determined to divorce itself from its uncertain past had started to take shape.

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In the intervening eight months, India have been electric. Attempts to unearth the class of players capable of blasting away from the word go led to casting the net far and wide. The Indian Premier League was a ready-made audition ground with performances in the most competitive 20-over competition in the world drawing the decision-makers to reward the performers with national caps. There could be some merit in the argument that the Indian T20 cap became somewhat easier to acquire. But that’s an inevitable fallout in an era where there is such demand for Indian cricketers, especially to travel and help augment financial resources of other member boards, that India are needed – and able – to put out two equally strong outfits in different formats simultaneously.

The 2-1 victory against England extended India’s unbeaten run in T20 series since the end of the World Cup in November. Strong sides such as New Zealand, West Indies, Sri Lanka and now England have been put in their place; the 2-2 result against South Africa at home sticks out somewhat, though the stalemate was edified by the reality that India bounced back from losing the first two games before the decider in Bengaluru was washed out with just 21 deliveries bowled.

At least a dozen games remain – in the Caribbean, the Asia Cup (most likely in Colombo despite the recent upheavals in the teardrop island) and at home against Australia – before India are required to submit their 15-man squad for the next T20 World Cup, in Australia in October-November. Clearly, it’s time to rein in the process of seeing what the ‘newcomers’ are made of and start to pare the extended squad down to manageable proportions.

When that process starts, and where it leaves Virat Kohli, is clearly the biggest talking point. Several legends, World Cup-winning skipper Kapil Dev included, headline the majority view that Kohli has been given too long a rope and that it’s time to drop him in the safety net and move on. Others, with current captain Rohit the most vocal and articulate, point out that few outsiders know what goes on within the team and that performances in one or two series don’t define the value of a batsman who took the world by storm across all formats for a stunning five years between the middle of 2014 and 2019.

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It’s not hard to see where Rohit is coming from. Clearly, he himself is the beneficiary of the ‘form is temporary, class is permanent’ adage which compelled Kohli and then head coach Ravi Shastri to resurrect his floundering Test career. Having underachieved in the middle order since breaking through with hundreds in his first two Tests in 2013, Rohit was given a fresh lease of life as an opener in October 2019. In the last 33 months, Rohit averages 55.42 in 18 Tests, with five centuries. That might not necessarily be at the top of his mind and Rohit is not being needlessly charitable but think-tanks often are tempted to do the same things and hope for different results, especially when established but misfiring superstars like Kohli are involved.

It would have been unthinkable even 12 months ago to debate Kohli’s value to the T20 set-up. Hailed as the ultimate chase master with a computer for a brain whilst hunting down totals, Kohli’s fall from T20 grace has been swift and unchecked since the start of the IPL in end-March. It isn’t so much the lack of runs alone that stands out. Even when he has stitched together the odd mini-substantial score, he has done so without the authority of yore. Kohli’s have been workmanlike, industrious runs rather than imperious and majestic. If he were the captain, he would be the first to baulk at having such a stuttering non-performing asset under his stewardship for this long.

A year ago, there weren’t as many options available to the team management and the national selectors. There is a logjam in the upper and middle orders not just on the strength of numbers but on the back of telling performances. Names such as Yadav and Hooda, Sanju Samson, Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant and the rejuvenated Dinesh Karthik offer myriad options. They have shown that they can ‘float’ through the order, confident and capable of batting just about anywhere from 1 to 7. Then there are Rohit and Rahul (recovering from surgery) and Ishan Kishan, explosive at the top of the tree. Kohli, who hasn’t been able to shed his ‘build-an-innings’ mindset with any conviction or success in the changed dynamics, is almost an anachronism, especially given he hasn’t been able to replicate the old either.

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Too many numbers have been bandied about too often to support why it’s time for Kohli to go for them to bear repetition. Suffice to say that numbers aside, Kohli doesn’t look anywhere near the all-conquering, fear-inducing willow-wielder he was until the last several months. For that reason alone, the Kohli debate won’t go away anytime soon, not until a call is made one way or the other.