OPINION
Follow Us"Virat Kohli is overcooked. If anyone needs a break, it's him. Whether it's two months or a month-and-a-half, whether it's after [the] England [tour in July] or before England – he needs a break because he has got six-seven years of cricket left in him and you don't want to lose that with a fried brain.”
Ravi Shastri minced no words when asked about the former Indian skipper’s barren run. But is it really that simple?
Of course, Shastri had a point. In the cricketing circle, very few understand Kohli the cricketer and Kohli the person better than Ravi Shastri. Kohli respected Shastri’s input on his techniques while Shastri has always been a bonafide member of the Kohli fan club, enamored by his work ethic and the hunger to take on the world. The duo developed a sense of respect for each other’s work and personality, intrinsic to how they operate as persons, defying the comments of sycophancy. Of course, you’d expect Shastri to know what would help Kohli reinvigorate the lost charm and become the batter he once was.
Then what has changed in Kohli in recent times that we have come to a situation where things don’t look like a straighter line conundrum? Is it “overcooking” or a fundamental change in his batting approach or just the Law of Averages catching up to make a meal out of his insane statistics? Or is it a combination of all of the above?
After seeing Kohli edging a seaming ball to the second slip on the very first ball he faced last night against Sunrisers Hyderabad, it drove home the point of how a cushion of self-doubt has gotten into the mind of a cricketer whose mental strength was second to none. And there is literally no solution in mind.
I am no psychologist nor can I claim to have a deep level of understanding when it comes to patterns and human behaviors. Thus I wouldn’t dare to chart in that territory. It is, however, imperative that we try to understand how the past failures impacted some of the sportsmen and women in other fields to get a basic idea of the Kohli conundrum.
In 2016, after having the world on his feet that saw him winning the Australian Open and French Open, and making it to the finals in US Open and ATP World Tour Finals, Novak Djokovic slumped to a hitherto unplumbed low in his career. He was pummeled 7-6, 6-3, 6-0 by Dominic Thiem in the next season’s French Open, winning only 28 of 82 points on Thiem’s serve - a statistic enough to blow anyone’s mind who has a basic understanding of Djokovic’s baseline game. The entire season saw him crashing out from one tournament to another and the career seemed like a finished business.
The way he was going down, it could have been the end. Thinkpieces were actually written on how Djoker could never ever return. His family was brought into question. And it was also a question of motivation. At a time when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were making return strides to own back “what was rightfully theirs”, Djoker was only a part of multiple inconclusive and inebriated discussions. How quickly have the times changed?
That not only did he return with a bang but went on to win another eight Grand Slams to pose for a grandstand finish as the “greatest male tennis player of all-time”, at least statistically, bares a long-standing idea of why sporting greatness is defined by unbelievable comebacks. Surely Virat Kohli has a problem, but he also had a body of work that defied the corresponding lows associated with every successful sports star for close to a decade. That body of work is symbiotic to how he operated as a person - confident, ready to walk the talk, and making statements of intent every single time.
Now, do you understand the theatrical reactions after every single dismissal nowadays?
Would Kohli, a tactically superior batter than most successful batters of the previous era, - no matter what your Twitter feed tells you - go down just like that and never achieve the peak he had once scaled for fun? When you scale peaks as the one Kohli did in 2016, it is almost difficult to match that standard again. You become a victim of your own greatness. But to return is paramount and that’s the first line of answer the former Indian skipper would search for.
"He is certainly doing everything that is in his control. He is doing his fitness and skills and taking good breaks and not letting the pressure get to him. He has been taking breaks at regular intervals and will continue to do so going forward,” RCB Head Coach Sanjay Bangar said in the press conference after a loss to SRH.
The current run of form would be hurting Kohli more than any fans can wish for. Maybe the return to domestic cricket would help, or going to County cricket to bring the lost touch back. As Bangar stated it is definitely not a question of resting because he has had many of them in recent times, to no avail. Perhaps, a change in mood and plenty of runs at another level would get that mojo back. After all, it is all about trying.
