Virat Kohli is enduring a tough lean patch, a rut so long and so scrutinized he had not seen in his dominance in the previous decade. There is no one to deny it.
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Even captain Rohit Sharma admitted that Kohli is undergoing a “slump”. Kohli himself acknowledged it when he replied back to the tweet of Pakistan captain Babar Azam who showed his support and gave strength to Kohli to hang in there and keep fighting.
Virat Kohli Is Not Truly “Out Of Form”
But, is this slump as much worse and pronounced as the media has been showing, as much as the fans have been thinking it is?
Sure, Kohli hasn’t hit a century for over 30 months, his last one – his 71st in international cricket. And sure, his dominance and match-winning impact haven’t been the same as it used to be in his pomp.
But, while fans and Kohli’s detractors throw up numbers, now some even asking for his exclusion from the T20I side and casting a doubt over his technique in Test cricket in testing conditions – there is also a piece of stat that shows that even though Kohli hasn’t been at his best, he still has been India’s best!!
The Twitter account of Wisden India on Saturday put out a stat which highlighted that despite being in a so-called “out of form” Kohli has been able to churn about half-centuries regularly, and more than any other Indian batsman since 2020.
‘An “out of form” Virat Kohli is the only India batter to score more than 20 fifty-plus scores since the start of 2020 across formats,’ the tweet said.
An “out of form” Virat Kohli is the only India batter to score more than 20 fifty-plus scores since the start of 2020 across formats. pic.twitter.com/lTggP1Isdo
— Wisden India (@WisdenIndia) July 16, 2022
Since January 2021, Virat Kohli has hit 21 fifties across all three formats – which is the most by an Indian batsman in this period, with KL Rahul next on the list with 19 fifty-plus scores; Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant have 16 fifty-plus scores each. Kohli’s 2265 run tally is also the most by an Indian batsman since 2020.
In fact, Kohli is among the top cream in the world – since 2020, only four other batsmen – Babar Azam (35), Mohammad Rizwan (24), Liton Das (22) and Joe Root (22) – have struck more 50+ scores in international cricket than Kohli has.
