Ever since Virat Kohli’s first century in three years against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup in Dubai last year, tales of his resurgence have been circulating. His great performance carried on to the T20 World Cup in Australia the following month, where he emerged as the tournament’s top scorer.
Virat Kohli had a rough Test cricket season in 2022, which persisted into this year. His lack of success against spin has been widely known, and he added another episode to the narrative by getting out to rookie Todd Murphy on the initial delivery after the lunch break.
Kohli’s lack of performance in Test Matches
The numbers have become even more worrying considering that he hasn’t scored a single fifty since that knock of 79 and has managed to cross 25 just twice. For a player who was number one in the Test rankings at the start of 2021, such a fall has been shocking, to say the least.
Battle against spin bowling
Virat’s performance in Test cricket began to decline after the start of the series against England in early 2021, as his vulnerability to spin bowling was exposed in the earlier home series against Sri Lanka where he was dismissed by spinners in all three innings he played.
During the Test series against Bangladesh, Kohli’s performance was not up to par, only garnering 45 runs in 4 innings and being dismissed by spinners twice. He was apparently having difficulty in gauging the length of the spin bowlers’ deliveries. In his last 5 dismissals against spin in Test matches, he has been given out lbw on three occasions.
In addition, he was out in the short-leg position against Mehidy Hasan in his last innings at Mirpur when he leaned forward to a ball that was not long enough and the short-leg fielder took his glove.
Therefore, the bowlers have had the chance to pitch to him without any added stress on them, and have been very successful in their attempts.