Virat Kohli’s Australia tour ended with him caught behind the wicket eight out of eight times – an average of 23.75 across five Tests with 100 of his 190 runs coming in one innings, a fairly easy walk-in-the-park 30th Test hundred at Perth in the opening Test after walking in to bat at 275/2.
On paper, Kohli has had another disappointing series that some believe could spell the end of his fabled Test career. Once again, Kohli struggled with his well-documented weakness against deliveries in the fourth and fifth stump channel, leading to a string of dismissals behind the wicket.
India’s next Test series isn’t until June, after the Champions Trophy and IPL 2025, both of which Kohli is expected to play. This raises a lingering question: should Kohli consider stepping away from Test cricket by then? And if he doesn’t, should India start planning for a future without him?
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Before we bring the hammer down on one of the greatest batters to play for India, it’s only fair that we also give context to Kohli’s wretched run in Tests, a string of 42 Test matches since he touched his Test peak, an average of 55.1 after his 254 not out against the Proteas in October 2019. That average currently sits at 46.85, the lowest he has averaged in over 11 years in this format.
We’ll consider the period post Covid when Kohli’s famous century drought began and his issues off deliveries in the channel outside off stump started becoming a regular topic of debate.
Kohli averages 32.09 across 37 Tests since the Covid-enforced break – very ordinary numbers for a legend of his stature. However, the global average of top 7 batters in this time frame is 29.87, and India’s top 7 (excluding Kohli) average 31.15 (these are for matches involving Kohli).
So, while Kohli has been underperforming by his own standards, it is not even a dip in comparison to those who bat in the same Test matches.
Now, the obvious, yet understated fact behind falling batting averages is the World Test Championship and the context it adds, leading to result-oriented Test matches, and in turn pitches that are harder to survive on, especially with the new ball.
The age of batters averaging 50s and 60s over a long period of time across different conditions is over. In the World Test Championship, there are only six batters who average over 50, the names revealing that they benefit from favorable conditions rather than sustained dominance.
Two of those are from Pakistan, where the home conditions have aided big scores. One is Harry Brook, who averages 84 and 70 in Pakistan and New Zealand respectively and 37 at home in England. Another is Kane Williamson, who has again benefitted from flatter wickets at home (average of 88 at home vs 33 away form home). Then there is Joe Root, who is riding an incredible crest in his career, and Yashasvi Jaiswal, who has had a great start in whites.
| Player | Runs | Batting Average |
|---|---|---|
| Kane Williamson | 2822 | 61.34 |
| Harry Brook | 1943 | 55.51 |
| Saud Shakeel | 1510 | 53.92 |
| Yashasvi Jaiswal | 1798 | 52.88 |
| Joe Root | 5543 | 51.80 |
| Babar Azam | 2953 | 50.91 |
Kohli, meanwhile, doesn’t get to play in Pakistan, and the two Tests he played in New Zealand in 2020 saw no team total over 250. In South Africa, where conditions have been the toughest for batting in the WTC, he averages over 40. He has rarely had the luxury of walking in with runs on the board. In 52 of his last 65 innings, India’s score was below 100, and his returns in these situations have been subpar: an average of 23.86 with seven fifties.
In 13 knocks, including the latest one at Perth in the second innings, Kohli walked in with a reasonable platform set (100 runs or more). He averages 70.27 in these games with three hundreds and two fifties. Eight of his 12 completed scores in these knocks are 40 runs or more.
Now, it is a given that at 36 years old, Kohli’s reflexes aren’t as great as it used to be and countering the seam movement on offer on some of the tracks he has played on is no easy task even at the peak of your powers.
Take the Sydney Test for instance. Scott Boland’s dismissals of Kohli in either innings were deliveries that had prodigious movement off the deck: 1.36 degrees each, according to Soham Sarkhel the senior broadcast analyst at CricViz. They are as good as it comes, and while there’s no data available publically to see how the average batter does off such deliveries, it can’t be very high.
Now, these are just two deliveries. But the fact is that Kohli’s weakness has been exposed so much that bowlers rarely move away from the outside off-stump plan to him and he has also been a fair bit unlucky unlike someone like Yashasvi Jaiswal, who has been good, while also benefitting from luck quite a bit in the Australia tour.
It’s not that Kohli hasn’t resisted the temptation to score off those deliveries in the channel. It is that his options are limited. Kohli leaves more deliveries outside off stump than before, but with bowlers relentlessly pursuing the edge off those balls, his eventual escape shots have been restricted to the front of square rather than behind it.
During the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25, only 30 off Kohli’s 190 runs came through square or behind square. 20 of those came in one innings in Perth during his ton, and quite a few others off streaky mistimed shots.
Below is a look at Kohli’s wagon wheel from the Australia tour.
Now, it’s not that Kohli range is limited. His use of the shots behind and through square have been self-restricted over recent years as he aims to attack the ball more on the front foot to minimise the effects of seam movement.
Kohli’s interception points against pace are quite a bit earlier than other batters, and he prefers playing on the front foot. There’s a reason why he tried moving his stance outside the crease (in Perth) and then in Sydney the guard was on off-stump: all to get closer to the ball to help him drive. But these have their caveats – the change in guard has contributed to lowering his off-stump awareness and playing at balls he doesn’t need to.
Opening up his shots square of the wicket on the off-side could be key to Kohli unlocking less risky scoring options and thereby forcing bowlers to bowl outside that channel. It’s not that he has curbed them entirely either. The most recent example of him using it to his advantage was in Cape Town in South Africa in early 2024. When wickets fell in heaps on day one – 23 of them – Kohli’s 46 was the highest score and his knock, by a fair distance, the most assured.
Now, there’s no denying India are in a transition phase, and the verdict on Kohli’s career, like with Rohit’s, has already been passed, by the fans at least.
Unlike Kohli, Rohit’s issues are more profound, despite him being one of India’s top batters in Tests in the last five years. If Rohit is bowing out or ignored for the England tour, will India leave Kohli out too, and take a new-look side for the first series of a fresh WTC cycle with Jasprit Bumrah leading?
In the WTC era, overseas tours have become a nightmare for batters, with even prolific domestic performers struggling to adapt at the international level. Among India’s recent Test debutant batters, Nitish Kumar Reddy looks the most assured in terms of technique against pacers, but then we saw his returns dwindle on the Aussie tour after a memorable ton.
Kohli’s weaknesses are glaring but not beyond repair. This isn’t to suggest that Kohli should be guaranteed a Test spot indefinitely, but replacing him before a challenging away tour to England might not be the ideal scenario — for the team as well as the young batters stepping in. Rather, that transition can come post the England tour when India play back-to-back home series against West Indies and South Africa and then tour Sri Lanka.
That said, even if Kohli does work on his scoring options, which he should, India should ponder the idea of moving Kohli a spot below.
Batting lower, say at No.5, would potentially minimise his vulnerabilities and also allow India a strong pillar to marshall the middle-order. At the same time, promoting someone like Rishabh Pant to the top four could disrupt bowlers’ rhythm and take the sheen off the new ball, especially with someone like Cheteshwar Pujara notably not in the top three anymore to play the long game.
The challenge for Pant lies in balancing keeping duties with batting in the top four. Fortunately, Dhruv Jurel appears ready to step into the playing XI, taking over as wicketkeeper while providing stability in the lower order.
The consensus around Kohli is understandable given his underwhelming numbers of late, but he is far from finished in a format he has always loved. Be kinder to batters in this WTC era, especially those with a proven body of work like Virat Kohli.
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