Is a slump temporary? Or do athletes just shrug it off the very next day, after a good night’s sleep? Virat Kohli was again out there in the middle wearing an India shirt, batting in a T20 World Cup game against Australia in St Lucia. Well, he was also in the middle of a lot of criticism after failing to do much with the bat, yet again in the tournament. (Full Coverage|More Cricket News)
Kohli tried to pull a ball that was dug in from Josh Hazlewood, only to just hit it to mid-on and Tim David. A five-ball duck and yet another failure. The shot did not look pretty, and his scores in the 2024 T20 tournament did not have a pretty reading.
0, 37, 24, 0, 4, 1 - four single digit scores, two double digit scores, two ducks and no fifties. A T20 tournament he had mastered beyond imagination, suddenly had taken a battering. And a proper, proper one.
India were under the lens for a few selection calls when the T20 World Cup squad was announced. Well, though it was expected, they were again when Kohli opened the batting ahead of Yashasvi Jaiswal. However, the seeds of the experiment just have not borne fruit, at least thus far.
Six matches, 66 runs, at an average of just 11, with a strike rate of 100 for an opener. Kohli has looked comfortable on a few occasions, showing promise, glimpses of magic where people would believe that the king has returned to his throne, but the shots that were played once he looked locked in were questionable.
However, there has been intent, and when the conditions have been tough, India’s milestone man has respected it, willing to take time and get into his groove.
So coming back, is a slump temporary? It can sometimes mean, you are just out of runs and not form. Kohli’s numbers are up there among the best to have played the sport. The solution to regaining the touch, lies when he’s out there, batting for India, looking to score runs? Or just riding back the memory lane to find the spark only to expect the flame to follow?
India’s campaign may still be very much dependent on other aspects of their game, clicking under pressure in big games that has not been the case lately, but Kohli coming good for India in a semi-final or potentially a final is a prospect that just bodes well for Rohit Sharma’s men.
Enough looking at a bad patch? No. But, the time during the bad patch is when one looks forward, and Kohli will continue doing that - to help India win the semi-final against England, who handed them heartache, two years ago, in a T20 World Cup semi in Adelaide, and also keep climbing the mountain called greatness.
Regardless of where Kohli goes from here, he has given the cricketing world, fight, for a good 16 years and with his T20 career on life-support, the 35-year-old has also shown signs of him not wanting to go with promising phases and will be looking to knock the top off when it matters most.
