Virat Kohli says prolonged slump cannot be compared to 2014 England tour as there was a pattern to his dismissals then; insists he is batting well
Virat Kohli
He doesn’t find any particular pattern to his prolonged slump in form unlike 2014, but then to succeed in international cricket for as long as Virat Kohli has, it couldn’t have happened without his ability to counter adversities.
The former India skipper has gone without an international hundred across formats for nearly three years now, but he feels that there isn’t much scope for course correction. The reason being that he isn’t having any particular technical problem like one he had during England tour of 2014 when he was poking at deliveries on off-stump channel.
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‘I understand my game’
“I know where my game stands and you cannot run this far in your international career without having the ability to counter situations and counter conditions and counter different kinds of bowling. So, this for me, is an easier phase to process, but I don’t want to put this phase behind me,” Kohli said on Star Sports. He then spoke how a pattern of dismissals was detected on that tour and then after technical adjustments scored nearly 600 runs during the tour of 2018.
“What happened in England was a pattern, so something that I could work on and something that I had to kind of overcome. Right now, as you rightly mentioned, there is nothing that you can point out saying that the problem is happening here,” Kohli noted.
Also Read: Virat Kohli will be back calmer: Former Team India coach Ravi Shastri
Modes of dismissals
However of late, Kohli has got out in every possible manner, to rising deliveries, to fuller balls, to swinging deliveries, to cutters, off-spin, leg-spin and left-arm spin. He feels that when there aren’t any patterns, that’s the best thing to have happened. “So, that for me, is actually an easier thing to process because I know that I’m batting well and at times, when I start feeling that rhythm back, then I know that I’m batting well.
“So, that for me is not an issue, which wasn’t the case in England [2014]. I didn’t feel like I was batting well at all. So, I had to work hard on one thing that could be exposed again and again which I overcame; right now this is not the case,” he added.
As he gets ready for the Asia Cup, Kohli knows that he will have to fight these ups and downs which are part and parcel of an elite sportsman’s life. “I know there are ups and downs, and when I come out of this phase, I know how consistent I can be. My experiences are sacred to me,” he said.
Learning from mistakes
“Whatever I have experienced in this phase or in the past, as well one thing that I can. So, this for me, is an easier phase to process, but I don’t want to put this phase behind me. I want to learn from it and I want to understand what are the core values that I have, as a sportsperson and as a human being,” he added.
Watson: Kohli will be physically and mentally fresh
Former Australian all-rounder Shane Watson feels Virat Kohli will be mentally and physically rejuvenated after a month-long break from cricket ahead of the Asia Cup, starting later this week.
“Having time off for him certainly, would [help him] just be able to regenerate mentally, physically, just be able to get away from the game of cricket,” Watson said on the ICC Review Show.
“You could just see that his energy was a bit sapped, even during the IPL. You could tell, no matter how much he tried—he was always up and about, but you could see the light was just out a tiny bit,” he added.
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