Since 2024, Virat Kohli has played six ODI matches and has been dismissed against leg spinners on five occasions.
There’s always some pattern in Virat Kohli’s dismissals. Generally, that pattern is too glaring to ignore, and Kohli sort of exacerbates it. If it’s the deliveries outside the off-stump line in Test cricket, it’s fresh issues against leg spinners in ODIs.
Since 2024, Kohli has played six ODI matches and has been dismissed against leg spinners on five occasions. Three dismissals have been against leg breaks, while the other two have been off googlies. He averages a mere 4.20 and has played 60.86% dot deliveries against them.
He faced 11 balls against Rishad Hossain against Bangladesh and played false shots on five deliveries. Three of them came in successive balls; the final one resulted in an expected dismissal. The bowlers have reduced their pace, asking Kohli to induce from his end, and the batter has succumbed while attempting to force his way out.
It’s not that Kohli hasn’t worked on his technique, but things have still not worked out. He batted with a faulty technique in the England series earlier this year when Adil Rashid bamboozled him with a straightforward plan. Kohli lunged forward too early, bringing that big stride forward, but couldn’t to the pitch of the ball.
Rashid smartly slowed down his pace on both occasions, allowing the ball to turn more to enhance the amount of dip. Kohli went with the motion and got outside edges on both occasions to lose his wicket. The speed on those deliveries read – 72.1 km/h and 71.1 km/h.
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Now Kohli played 78.57% of balls from the front foot against Rashid in the series and became too predictable. He worked on this issue coming into the opening Champions Trophy 2025 fixture. He didn’t commit on the front foot too early against Rishad Hossain and mostly remained on the back foot.
He played seven of 11 deliveries against Rishad by moving back and not committing too early. While correcting one aspect, Kohli made a different error. Before the wicket delivery, we need to see what transpired on the previous one.
Rishad bowled a loopy, fuller-length delivery outside the off-stump line, and Kohli went for a drive. However, the ball gripped and turned sharply to beat Kohli’s outside edge. This was precisely how he was dismissed in the England series.
So, everyone involved knew Kohli would try to bat the next delivery off the back foot to avoid a false shot again. Bangladesh had put a couple of fielders in the point region for the backfoot shots. Then, Rishad deliberately shortened his length on the following delivery, but Kohli went too back and across in his crease.
The ball was slow again, allowing it to turn sharply again, and the line was not wide enough.
Too much movement meant Kohli couldn’t keep it down, which again showed that while he was working on not committing early, he was still unsure about his foot movement. He only ensured he did not make the same mistake as the England series, but that method is unlikely to work in Dubai.
The deck slowed significantly as Bangladeshi spinners came into play, so cross-batted shots were always arduous to execute. Kohli is not a great backfoot player, either. So, another tepid dismissal was not too hard to predict.
His issues against leg spinners are glaring, and Virat has historically struggled to overcome a particular problem quickly. It’d be too much to expect him to improve drastically at this stage in his career. All he can hope for is tracks don’t assist spinners as much as they did in the previous game, or else things can worsen for him in the remaining games.
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