When will Virat Kohli score his next century?
2022 has been a record-breaking year for Virat Kohli. But unlike in 2016 and 2018, the records broken this year have mostly been for the wrong reasons. In 19 matches played so far across all formats this year, Kohli has scored just four half-centuries. He has also bagged five ducks, adding to the five last year.
How did this happen? How could someone who has scored a century in every third match endure such wretched form? How did he get through 103 consecutive innings without a century?
How did Virat Kohli fall from the throne?
To answer this question, we need to rewind to the Indian tour of the Caribbean in 2019 after the Cricket World Cup. Kohli went into the ODI series against the West Indies after a short drought of centuries. He hadn't scored a century in the last 12 ODIs, including the World Cup, and the mini-drought surprised a lot of fans.
However, Kohli ended the dry spell in magnificent fashion, scoring two consecutive centuries in the ODI series. He carried this form into the home season as well. When South Africa arrived in India in 2019 for a Test series, he scored a personal best of 254* in Pune. It was followed by 136 against Bangladesh in Kolkata. That was his last century (but, hopefully, not the last).
He still looked good at the crease after that 136. In December 2019, he scored 94* against the West Indies in the first T20 in Hyderabad. He then scored a unbeaten 70 off 30 deliveries in the third T20.
In the home series against Australia in January 2020, he scored 78 and 89 in the second and third ODIs. It looked as if the next century was just around the corner.
It was not to be, however. As India toured New Zealand in February 2020, Kohli fared disastrously across all formats. He scored just two half-centuries in the 10 matches he played on the tour.
As India came back shattered from New Zealand, there was still a beacon of light for him. The home ODI series against South Africa was scheduled for March 2020 and everyone expected him to roar back into form. Then the pandemic struck, and cricket was postponed. The wait continued.
View the IPL 2022 timetable here.
Post-lockdown: IPL 2020 and the tour of Australia
Many believe that it was the six months of lockdown which caused Kohli to lose his touch. But that theory contradicts itself by looking at his performances in IPL 2020.
He started the tournament, which was held in the UAE in the month of September, slowly but found his mojo against the Rajasthan Royals, scoring 56*. He also scored a 90* against CSK, hinting that he had still not lost his touch.
He scored 466 runs in that edition of the IPL at an average of 42.36. The numbers were not remarkable but they highlighted the fact that he was still in decent form coming out of lockdown.
When India toured Australia in 2020, he once again scored handsomely in the ODI series, hitting 89 and 63. In the T20 series, he scored 85 in the third T20. That century, however, still eluded him. He had one more chance to get it, in the first Test at Adelaide before returning home on paternity leave.
Kohli and Adelaide have had a love-affair; he has a century on that ground almost every time he has walked out to bat there since 2014. This was the perfect time for him to seize the moment and get that 71st International century.
For most of the first day, it looked like he would end 2020 with that elusive century but he was run out, sold down the river by his deputy for 74. There was no second innings in that Test match.
After scoring at least one hundred every year for almost a decade, Kohli did not manage a single hundred in 2020. It was a big surprise for everyone, including Kohli, and it would impact him in the future.
England tour of India 2021
India played at home for the first time in February 2021 after 13 months. When England arrived to compete in a four-match Test series, Kohli was still making the headlines. 2020 was an aberration - surely he would break the sequence in 2021? Looking at England's game against spin, it was generally expected that India would inflict a whitewash upon the visitors.
However, England surprised everyone, including themselves, when they defeated a full-strength Indian side in Chennai by 227 runs. It sent the Indian team into shock as the scars of 2012 began to open up (England won the Test series 2-1 in 2012). Pressure mounted on both Kohli, the skipper, and Kohli, the batter.
He wanted to dominate the bowlers to end the century-drought and also take his team to victory. As he walked out to bat in the second Test, he played the cover-drive first ball against Moeen Ali and was bowled for a duck. He scored duck in the fourth Test as well.
He usually started his innings slowly during his peak years, getting settled to the pace and bounce of the pitch before accelerating. It was his strategy in all the formats that had made him top the batting charts. Moreover, the secret to his scoring all those centuries was that he always put the team first.
However, that all changed. He seemed desperate for that century, starting his innings in a fidgety manner and usually getting dismissed for a low score. Another duck followed in the T20 series against England.
In IPL 2021, he scored 405 runs at an average of 28.92 across both halves of the season. He looked uncomfortable at the crease throughout the 2021 IPL season as slowly, but surely, his form deserted him.
In the World Test Championship final at Southampton, Kohli didn't even get to the half-century mark in both innings as New Zealand won their maiden Test championship.
Things worsened during India's tour of England in August 2021 as Kohli collected a golden duck in his first innings at Nottingham, dismissed by nemesis James Anderson.
T20 World Cup 2021 and captaincy controversy
The Indian players selected for the 2021 T20 World Cup all played in the UAE leg of the 2021 IPL. This meant that the IPL gave them enough match practice to get in the groove before the start of the World Cup.
For Kohli, the World Cup was his last shot at redemption. He had already announced he would resign from the T20 captaincy at the end of the T20WC campaign.
He started well against Pakistan, scoring a brilliant half-century when none of the other Indian batters scored significantly. However, that was not enough as India lost to Pakistan for the first time in any World Cup. He failed to score in the other matches as India exited the T20WC in the group stage.
Kohli was out for yet another duck during the second Test against New Zealand in Mumbai in early December. It was his fifth duck of the year and that was enough for the selectors to strip him of his ODI captaincy as well. The King of Indian cricket started was losing his grip over his team. His kingdom was being taken bit by bit.
A leader who led the side with grit, passion & determination. 🇮🇳🔝
Thank you Captain @imVkohli!👏👏
#TeamIndia https://t.co/gz7r6KCuWF
2022 and things are still going downhill for Kohli
Kohli started 2022 on a seemingly brighter note. He hit a 79 in the first innings of the third Test in Cape Town but made an excruciating 29 off 143 in the second.
With the turn of events in 2021, including the departure of his mentor Ravi Shastri and the loss of his limited-overs captaincy, his confidence looked to be at an all-time low. No longer did those big eyes stare down the bowler, screaming intimidation and dominance.
India eventually lost the third match and the Test series against a weak South African side. He surrendered his Test captaincy the next day to concentrate on his batting.
However, things took a turn for the worse. He endured a poor ODI series at home against West Indies, scoring just 26 runs across three games, including a duck in the third ODI.
The failures continued in the Test Series against Sri Lanka with 81 runs at an average of 27 and being dismissed by the spinners on all three occasions. It was the ninth dismissal by spin for Kohli at home since the start of 2021. His Test average dropped below 50 for the first time since 2017.
During a broadcast presentation, Dinesh Karthik analyzed his batting failures, noting that he stood more on the leg-side of the ball against spin to avoid an LBW. It was in stark contrast to his stance during his peak years when he stayed more on the off-side and opened the leg side for shot-making.
In short, his mindset had changed from dominating the bowlers to simply surviving at the crease. It allowed the spinners to get him stuck at the crease before bowling the ball with his name on it.
His struggles in IPL 2022 are there for all to see. Unless you live under a rock, you would know that he has gathered three golden ducks and just one half-century so far this season. Moreover, his strike rate has benefitted the opposition more than his team.
Everyone, #RCB and India fans, and I am among them, would be delighted to see Kohli among the runs. But purely in the context of the game this evening, they would have liked him to have got those a bit quicker
Without a doubt, Kohli is going through his worst patch as a batter. If 2014 was a blip on his radar, then 2022 has made the radar dysfunctional.
When is the next century coming?
Witnessing his current form, even the most optimistic of his fans would agree that a century at the moment looks far, far away. Even the half-centuries have dried up now, with the ducks coming more frequently for the batter. It also seems like he is being drafted to the playing eleven because of the star-batter he was during his peak years and not based on his current form.
The answer is that nobody knows when he will score a century, not even him. He might have four to five years of cricket left in him and he can come back at any time or not at all.
He has taken a lot of punches in the last couple of years and we can only guess if he can take some more before getting knocked out or throw one back. One thing no cricket fan can forget is that Kohli has always been a fighter.
The truth, however, is that he will not score a hundred until everyone, including Kohli, stops expecting it from him. Once everyone stops expecting more than the 10s and 20s, and aren't surprised by the odd duck or three, once he realizes the pressure is off him, that is possibly when Kohli will score a hundred out of nowhere.
And once he gets his 71st hundred, he will not stop there. He will score 10, 15 or even 20 more over the next few years and rule the batting charts again. The reasoning behind this is that when nobody expects anything from you, you automatically start playing exceptionally to regain their expectations.
To quote a famous line by Rocky Balboa: "It's not about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That is how winning is done."