3 reasons why Virat Kohli should be dropped from the Indian test team
(Courtesy : Getty Images)
Virat Kohli has hit only three test centuries since 2020.
Virat Kohli made his test debut in 2011. After a string of mediocre scores, he produced two outstanding innings on the 2011/12 test tour of Australia, proving that he belonged at the highest level.
He gradually developed consistency and by 2014, former New Zealand great Martin Crowe placed him in the ‘Fab 4’ of this generation.
After his disastrous tour of England in 2014, in a couple of years’ time, Virat Kohli attained his peak, and left Kane Williamson and Joe Root, two of his contemporaries, behind and was competing with only Steve Smith as the best test batsman in the world.
While Smith was away for a year-long ban in 2018-19, Kohli flourished during that period like no other batsman in the world and achieved great heights. From 2015 to 2019, Kohli averaged a whopping 62 in test cricket and plundered 18 centuries in 52 tests.
However, Kohli’s peak form started to diminish from 2020/21 and has gradually been declining so much that his centuries have been few and far between – only three hundreds since 2020 in 65 innings, and all three heavily aided by other factors – and there are now calls for his axing from the test side.
As India have been struggling as a batting unit in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2024-25 after being whitewashed 0-3 at home by New Zealand, the swords are out for Virat Kohli’s place in the side, with explicable reasons.
3 reasons why Virat Kohli should be dropped from the Indian test team:
Dismal form
The primary reason for any player’s axing from the side is their unsatisfactory form, and Virat Kohli’s has been dismal in recent years.
Since 2020, he has averaged 31 with three centuries and nine fifties in 37 test matches. One of these came on a flat, lifeless pitch in Ahmedabad, another against an impotent West Indies bowling attack, and the third when the top three had batted for 84 overs.
Failure to rectify weakness against outside off-stump
Leave aside the fans, but the frustration for Virat Kohli himself regarding his dismissals in test cricket would be around the same pattern over and over again: outside the off-stump deliveries.
In previous years, it would take bowlers to be consistent on the channel outside the off-stump, that is the fifth and sixth stump line, to nick Kohli out. Now, though, he’s been dismissed chasing deliveries that are even farther than that, driving loosely at balls on the seventh, eighth stump and beyond.
The fact that he’s been getting tempted to the same form of dismissal and has failed to rectify it to a good extent for so long time speaks volumes. It doesn’t seem as much of a tactical error as mental impatience. It’s unlikely that at the age of 36, he’s going to get any better.
Groom a new No. 4 who can tackle the new ball well
Be it at home or away, with the pitches assisting the bowlers considerably, the openers are more likely to get out even surviving than before. Kohli has often come in to bat early in the team’s innings and has majorly failed to bail the side out of trouble.
His lengthy knocks in the last five years have mostly come after the top three had batted out a hefty amount of overs, blunting the new ball and surviving a couple of spells of the bowlers.
That has allowed Kohli to capitalise on the laid platform. But as a senior batsman, he is expected to steer the team out of trouble when early wickets fall, something he’s failed to do so in the last few years.
The Indian test team is in a transition period currently with a few seniors on their way out. Being an elite-level and successful athlete, it’s natural for Virat Kohli to feel that he’s got plenty of gas left in the tank, that this is just a rough patch – but a lean patch stretching five years is poor form. The selectors should look for a new No. 4, someone with the temperament to handle the moving new ball.
For more updates, follow Khel Now Cricket on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube; download the Khel Now Android App or IOS App and join our community on Whatsapp & Telegram.