Analysis: Deep dive into the decline of cricketing icon Virat Kohli and how he can make it back

It’s been a slow and steady decline of cricket legend Virat Kohli, now BEN JONES takes a deep dive into what went wrong for the Indian god and how he could turn it all around.

December 2018, Perth. Australia were taking on India in the inaugural Test at Optus Stadium. The hosts were 1-0 down after defeat in Adelaide the previous week, but delivered a terrific performance, beating India by almost 150 runs.

On a classically Western Australian surface, batters on both sides found life tough. 21 per cent of deliveries were met with an edge, or a miss, the highest figure for an Australian match in a decade. Only one man reached 100 - Virat Kohli, with 123 (257), one of his finest Test knocks; India would lose the game, but win the series, a crowning achievement in his captaincy career.

Virat Kohli hasn’t been at his best for a while now. Picture: Glyn KIRK / AFP

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That innings in Perth was among the final flourishes of ‘Peak Virat’, a five-year run of 18 Test centuries, an average over 60, and seven double hundreds that gave him the reputation of being perhaps the best batter of his generation, and in the conversation for the greatest the game has seen full stop. Now, in November 2024, things look rather different.

Because Kohli has been living off the fumes of that reputation for a good while now. Last year he may have averaged 55.91, but it’s a recent outlier; in the last five calendar years, that’s the only time he’s managed to average more than 30. Just once in that time has he averaged 50 in a series, a far cry from the man who used to define Tests with vaulting, unbeaten double hundreds. In simple terms, Kohli isn’t Kohli any more.

How did we get here?

Clearly, there’s no good way for a batter to decline. It’s not inherently better to struggle against one bowler type to a fatal degree, or to find some conditions as easy as before but find others unmanageable. What is interesting though, is that Kohli’s record has dropped off in a relatively uniform fashion across the board. In the last five years, his average against pace (34) is almost identical to his average against spin (32). They dismiss him at an identical rate, both seamers and spinners getting his wicket every 68 balls. With the small exception of left-arm pace, he is finding everything harder.

When players start to drop off in their mid-30s, a go-to question is to ask if their ‘eyes have gone’, i.e. if the exceptional eyesight which elite batters are blessed with is in decline. There is no straightforward way to measure this from the outside, but one approach is to look at how a player does against the very quickest bowlers. When the challenge of picking up length and line is at its greatest, do they still have it?

For Kohli, the answer is yes - in the last five years his average against high pace bowling (140kph+) is a hugely impressive 124, the best in the world. There’s no downward trend whatsoever, from this ‘physical’ angle. He’s as fit as he ever was running between the wickets, he’s still picking the ball up as well as ever, but he’s performing consistently worse across the board.

No, the truth of the matter for Kohli is less dramatic, and somehow more humbling. If you dig relatively deep into his numbers, there are some areas which do stand out, and there is one particular area of Kohli’s game that has declined most clearly. At his peak, despite the distractions of the flamboyant stroke play and attacking intent, Kohli’s defensive game was excellent. From 2015-2019, his best period numerically, he was dismissed every 120 defensive strokes he played; among those to play 1000 defensive strokes in that time, only five players had a better record. Since then, Kohli is dismissed every 48 defensive strokes - only five players have a worse record.

There has been a bigger drop-off in his performance at home than on the road. From 2016-2019 his record in India was majestic, averaging 86, a ton every other Test. Since then, his average has fallen to just 30, a reflection in part of the change in home conditions that have seen India prepare far more turning pitches, rather than the flatter surfaces which typified the early part of Kohli’s captaincy. But even with that context, it’s one hell of a decline - especially alongside the comparatively modest drop in performance away from home.

The quality of his performance against the most common delivery in Test cricket - a good length delivery from a seam bowler - has halved. In the golden years, he was averaging 44 facing those deliveries, an unbelievable effort and the second best in the world (behind the superhuman Steve Smith, who somehow managed an average of 94). In recent years though, Kohli’s average against those balls has fallen to 20, essentially the overall global average for all batters. He has become distinctly, unavoidably normal.

What happens next?

The next challenge for Kohli - perhaps, the final challenge - is the upcoming Border Gavaskar series. His record here is superb: no Indian has more Test runs on Australian soil. With six tons, he stands level with Sachin Tendulkar, with the chance to go clear. Even looking beyond his compatriots, every visiting batter with more runs than Kohli in Australia has played more matches here than him. If he was picking somewhere to regain his form, it could be here.

Similarly - if we’re digging for Indian optimism - Kohli’s record against the ‘Fab Four’ remains largely excellent. Bowling to him, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood both average north of 50, and in Nathan Lyon’s case it rises to north of 70. The only bowler in that core Aussie pack with a genuinely impressive record against Kohli is Pat Cummins, with the Australian skipper having dismissed him five times at an average of 21.

But that sort of thinking isn’t what Kohli is about. It’s never been about match-ups, picking the weakest of the herd, managing weaknesses; his game is about proactivity, main-character syndrome writ large. The game is about Virat Kohli.

Virat Kohli will be looking to return to form this Summer in Australia. Picture: Glyn KIRK / AFP

And amid the constant debates around India’s new aggressive batting approach, there is a kernel of the old Kohli. At his peak, his attacking shots (i.e. attempts to score a boundary) averaged 62 runs per dismissal. That isn’t absolutely exceptional, given the likes of Kane Williamson and Cheteshwar Pujara averaged over 100 with the same strokes in this era but it is unquestionably strong. And more importantly, it hasn’t fallen away. In the last four years, Kohli has actually marginally improved this element of his game, averaging 63 runs per dismissal with his attacking strokes.

So while the mob bays for blood after defeat to New Zealand, and the commentariat calls for caution and discipline from India’s batting order, perhaps - and not for the first time - Kohli stands apart. In a simplified, blunt view of the game, batting defensively is selfless and team-oriented, while stroke play is selfish and ego-based. Yet for Kohli, with his defence a shadow of its best, but with his strokemaking as strong as ever, maybe the opposite is true. Regardless of whether his teammates follow the same template, there’s a clear argument for Kohli trusting his attacking technique not his defensive one, and taking it to the Australian bowlers.

At 36 years old, on his fourth tour of this country, we know he’s not here for a long time - it might as well be a good one.

Originally published as Analysis: Deep dive into the decline of cricketing icon Virat Kohli and how he can make it back