Virat Kohli’s battle for form and the lean phases of India’s all-time greats

“It doesn’t matter how runs come as long as they come.”

For batters, that’s a familiar motto, something to live by especially when the going gets tough. Perhaps it’s on Virat Kohli's mind right now too because the Indian Test captain is in the grip of a protracted, unprecedented slump in form.

Kohli’s lean run now dates back to more than two years. No century in any format since November 2019—his last ton came in India’s first pink-ball Test against Bangladesh in Kolkata – is the stat most frequently bandied about, perhaps understandably for a batter who was accustomed to reeling off centuries for fun not too long ago.

A caveat: century or not, Kohli's limited-overs form is still robust. He might have not added to his 43 ODI centuries, but he is still averaging 46.66 from 12 ODIs since January 1, 2020. The fact that his ODI career average continues to just be shy of 60 exemplifies the flurry of runs that flowed from his bat previously. In T20Is too, his 594 runs in 20 games over the last two years have come at an average of 49.5 and a strike rate of 137.18.

But it’s in Test cricket—the format Kohli accords most respect to—that an alarming slump has transpired. In his last 14 Tests, comprising 25 innings, the returns have been unmistakably meagre: 652 runs at an average of 26.08, and a highest score of 74. That knock, against Australia in the pink-ball Test in Adelaide in December 2020, was a controlled innings without many blemishes in challenging climes. It was brought to an end only due to a costly mix-up with Ajinkya Rahane. But since then, Kohli has breached the half-century mark only four times in 19 innings.

An old propensity to push at balls well outside off-stump—as opposed to exercising more restraint in choosing when to play the expansive cover drive—has returned to vex him, for the first time since that gloomy English summer in 2014 when he managed a dismal 134 runs in five Tests at 13.4. That was a slump that triggered the beast in Kohli. He amassed 692 runs and four centuries on the tour of Australia later that year. His average breached the 45-run mark and it took another two years (against England at home in December 2016) for the hallowed mark of 50 to be touched for the first time. He has been there or thereabouts ever since, hitting a peak of 55.10 after a career-best 254* against South Africa at home in October 2019.

If you want to know what averaging above 50 over a considerable period takes, here’s a telling nugget. Among Indians who have played a minimum of 20 Tests (Vinod Kambli averaged 54.2 from 17 Tests), Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Kohli are the only ones to average over that mark. Gavaskar, Tendulkar and Dravid have long retired, their legendary status in the game entrenched, but Kohli—his average now is 50.34—is increasingly running the risk of falling out of that ultra-rarefied bracket.

Perhaps Kohli could look back at how the holy trinity of Indian batting suffered from phases of doubt and disappointment, and take solace in the fact that lean phases are almost inevitable in the course of long and decorated careers.

In Tendulkar’s 24-year international career, he had two distinct phases in Tests where he had to deal with an extended slump. The first one was between December 2005 and January 2008, when his only two centuries came against Bangladesh. Leaving those two tons aside, he scored 847 runs in 28 innings at an average of 32.57 without managing to bring up the three-figure mark even once. This was right after the time he got tennis elbow and what it entailed had seeped into the national consciousness of minds young and old.

The second phase came right at the twilight of Tendulkar’s 200-Test career. His last 23 Tests, beginning from July 2011 to his final game in November 2013, fetched just 1229 runs at an average of 32.34, with the 40 innings that he went without a century being the longest such streak of his career. Even in ODI cricket, he hit just one century – the 100th of his international career – in his final 14 games. In between these two stretches, though, Tendulkar was as prolific as ever: hitting 3326 runs in 34 Tests at 65.21 with 14 centuries.

Dravid, a contemporary of Tendulkar’s for 16 years, also went through phases when gaps were found in his otherwise water-tight technique. From July 2007 to December 2008, he played 21 Tests and 40 innings and returned 1007 runs at an average of 27.97. He wasn’t quite at his best for a couple of years after that either, but the 2011 tour of England was a personal high despite the team’s floundering fortunes. He hit 461 runs in four Tests including three centuries – the pinnacle of the tour was him carrying the bat at the Oval with an innings of 146* – and showed the worth of experience that a battle-hardened 38-year-old brings to the table. The problems resurfaced in Australia a few months later though. He was bowled in six of the eight innings – in stark contrast to Dravid’s virtues as a batter – and decided that his time at the highest level was up.

Dravid and Tendulkar's careers, of course, were shaped by Gavaskar’s trailblazing efforts during the 1970s and 80s. Aside from having minimal protective equipment while facing the quickest of bowlers, a glance at his record suggests he barely had a prolonged run of poor form. The only middling stretch was from 1980 to 1982 when 27 innings yielded 950 runs at 36.53 and just one century. Before the second Test against West Indies in Delhi in 1983, there was a tiny stretch of six Tests that saw him average 31 but what followed quickly were scores of 121 off 128 balls and 236* in the same series.

All three were also members of the 100-Test club that features 11 Indians. Kohli will join the club during the third Test at Newlands in Cape Town. If his sense of occasion helps him put an end to his century drought there, he can do two things: become the first Indian to score a century in his 100th Test and take the first steps towards rekindling his penchant for big scores.