Virat the batsman needs to part ways with Kohli the captain

“We have 10 games to go. If we start turning things around pretty soon, then we can get on a roll as well. We have to keep believing as a side,” said a buoyant Virat Kohli after the Royal Challengers Bangalore lost their fourth successive game of Indian Premier League 2019. Repeated failures can lead to disappointment, yet Kohli’s passion and conviction never cease.

Kohli piles up runs, only for his bowlers to botch it up. This one-line story has repeated itself year after year. Yet the optimist holds his team together, in the belief that tomorrow will be a better day. You see Kohli everywhere — behind the wicket, near the boundary, at the mid-wicket, because he wants to save every run, no matter where he is fielding. You see him celebrate every dismissal like a debutant relishes Tendulkar’s wicket. You see him continuously flapping him arms to ensure correct field placements. But more importantly, you see him backing his players till the last ball.

The skipper’s positivity is so infectious that despite his team languishing at the bottom, Chinnaswamy Stadium turns into a sea of red every match. You see placards conveying unconditional love for the ‘Red Army.’ You hear a deafening roar that only gets louder with each run and wicket. But 40 overs later, RCB’s fortunes remain irreversible.

Years of losses

Kohli was in tears after their loss to Delhi Capitals, and for any fan of Indian cricket, that visual was heartbreaking. The man who overachieves for team India is a perennial underachiever for the RCB. Not as a batsman, but as a captain. That he has captained the RCB in over a 100 games and not won a single trophy makes it high time for the franchise to decide — does Kohli stay at the helm to protect the team’s brand value, or is it time to relieve the world’s best batsman of his duties, and let him freely do what he is best at.

The 29-year-old’s captaincy for Team India is without blemishes. Under his leadership, India retained the Test Championship for the third time in a row four days back. But the moment he dons the red jersey, you wonder if the absence of Ravi Shastri and MS Dhoni makes him vulnerable.

In six matches this season, opening batsman Parthiv Patel came out to bat with three different partners. Kohli in the first game, Moeen Ali in the second, Shimron Hetmyer in the third, and then Kohli, again, in the fourth, fifth and sixth. This is the first major highlight of Kohli’s shortcomings as a skipper. Neither did he persist with anyone but Patel as an opener, nor did he himself open in all the six games, despite being the team’s regular opener for years. The logic behind this decision can be explained only by the man himself.

Hetmyer, a powerful hitter, was expected to do a lot more than what he has done so far. The Guyanese is playing his first ever IPL, and it is natural that he will want clarity on his batting position to settle down accordingly. But in the four games that Hetmyer played before being dropped, Kohli changed his batting position thrice, a decision that earned the team only fifteen runs in four games from the batsman. The management may release Hetmyer for IPL 2020, the same way in which Sarfaraz Khan, who was not utilised properly in 2018, was released this season.

Thoughtless decisions

While we do not know for certain as to how involved a captain is in the player auctions, Kohli must surely rue his or the management’s decision to release KL Rahul, Chris Gayle and Sarfaraz from RCB, all of whom are now doing well for the Kings XI Punjab.

Kohli has continuously failed to make the maximum use of limited resources. Tim Southee, one of the better fast bowling options, was introduced in the playing XI only in the fifth game of this season, even after Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini and Mohammed Siraj failed to inspire confidence in the first four games. That takes us to another of Kohli’s shocking captaincy moves. Why was Southee played on a spin-friendly Chinnaswamy track against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR)? Probably to concede 29 runs off a single over against Andre Russell in the penultimate over. What is worse is that off-spinner Moeen Ali did not bowl a single over on that pitch and Pawan Negi, RCB’s best bowler on the day, did not complete his quota of four overs.

The KKR skipper, on the other hand, used all his four spinners effectively. The Knights bowled 14 overs of spin with an economy of eight, while the pacers were used for only six overs. Just in case Kohli failed to read the pitch, he should have at least put Dinesh Karthik’s tactical knowhow from the first innings to his own use.

Surprisingly, at the toss of the KKR versus RCB match, Kohli explained his rationale behind going in with seven bowlers, saying that the variety would help him rotate each bowler as per the game. “We wanted to get even stronger balance in the bowling, so Tim Southee comes in for Shimron Hetmyer, and Pawan Negi replaces Umesh Yadav. That gives us seven bowling options, which I’m pleased about. Once the situation becomes difficult, as a captain you can choose which bowler to bowl when,” Kohli said at the toss.

His actions didn’t match his words when he chose Southee to bowl the 19th over ahead of Negi, to a batsman who is in the form of his life. Not to forget, even in RCB’s opening game of the season against Chennai on a rank turner at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Kohli played only two spinners, while MS Dhoni’s three-spinner attack won them the game.

Ever since taking over the reins from Daniel Vettori in 2012, Kohli has failed to inspire confidence as a captain. The lack of clarity in most of his decisions, poor tactical knowhow, questionable team selections and constant tweaking in the playing XI are the key areas in which he has failed.

It is unfortunate that despite enviable firepower, and some of the greatest T20 players in their ranks over the years — Yuvraj Singh, Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers and Shane Watson — RCB’s title drought continues. With 5,151 runs — the most by any batsman in IPL history — Kohli doesn’t deserve to be the face of IPL’s weakest team. The best he can do for RCB, and himself, is to remove the captain’s hat from his head.

(The writer is a freelance cricket journalist)