Warner and Kohli in form slump

The two star batsmen have been in form slumps; one gets to play without pressure, the other has every innings scrutinised.

David Warner will play the first Tests in England and has eyes on an SCG retirement, if that plays out as planned Australia will probably have won the World Test Championship final and Ashes with The Bull back to his best, but he could just as easily be gone after the second Ashes Test at Lord’s.

Selectors are unlikely to show the patience they did with the opener who had a nightmare series against Stuart Broad in 2019.

Warner too would dread a prolonged repeat.

The curious thing surrounding the debate over Warner’s place in the side is why there is no mirror of that debate around the place of India’s former skipper Virat Kohli. Australia’s nemesis over so many years is in the middle of a bad run which began in Covid, saw him retire the captaincy and has continued since.

Warner and Kohli’s records in the two year qualifying period for the match at The Oval are almost identical. Warner scored 847 runs from 28 innings at an average of 31.37. His only century was the double hundred at the MCG in the summer.

Kohli scored 869 runs from 28 innings at an average of 32.18. His only century in that period was the 186 at Ahmedabad.

In India fans worship the ground both players walk on. In Australia they are treated with a degree of wariness and Warner position is questioned, while his opposite number operates without the same level of pressure or scrutiny.

It is right that Warner, 36, be questioned, it’s curious that Kohli, 34, isn’t. How the pair perform in this last meeting at Test level will be fascinating.

David Warner’s form slumped has mirrored that of Virat Kohli Picture: Getty Images

Sunil Gavaskar believes that the former Indian captain has turned a corner.

“Every player goes through things called bad patch or lean patch,” the former great told Star Sports. “So I think that was what was happening. Then later on once he started to get the runs, you would again have noticed that in the early stages, he was having a bit of luck.“

“The inside edges were going near the stumps, but not hitting the stumps, the catches being dropped or the catches being just a little bit away from the fielder.

“So that little bit of luck that every batter needs, which had deserted him in that barren period, he has got it back.

“Otherwise, he has got a wonderful temperament, he has got the hunger for runs, and technically also he is very good. So no wonder that he has been back among the runs.”

Scoring runs in India is hard and Kohli is exposed to the difficult batting conditions more than Warner, but the Australian opens the batting and there is no more difficult place to bat.

Especially in England where the Dukes ball can make cricket seem like quidditch when the skies are low and the air moist.

Kohli has the luxury of entering the fray when the attack and ball have hopefully been blunted by the likes of Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara.

Virat Kohli has scored one Test hundred since the outbreak of Covid Picture: Getty Images

In the lead up to 2019 Broad developed a different approach for Warner after the Australian had made England’s lives so difficult for so long. It worked and the opener found himself in a horror stretch that always seem to come with the bits of bad luck Gavaskar was referring to.

Hopefully his fruitful period at the recently concluded IPL indicates his luck, like Kohli’s, has returned. Warner looks good in the nets in the UK, putting in long spells against the quicks and was last to leave training on one day, still batting while his teammates had packed and left.

His opening partner Usman Khawaja seems to think things have turned.

“This is probably the best I have seen him look in the nets for a while. That doesn‘t always correlate to runs, but if we are any chance of Davey Warner scoring runs this could be it. He always plays his best when his back is against the wall too,” he said.

Warner joked during the week that if Broad and England can void their last tour of Australia then he should be able to forget his 95 runs at an average of 9.5.

Kohli has played some of his best cricket against Australia.

“The Australian team is such a competitive side that if you give them a small window, they will come hard at you,” he said this week.

“So my motivation increases that much more. I have to elevate my game for sure to beat this team, otherwise the amount of motivation and drive Australia have, they won‘t even give us any chance to make a comeback. In order to defeat such a strong side, I had to take my game to the next level,“ Kohli told Star Sports.

Kohli’s record is better away from home and was impressive against England in 2018.

“You can‘t get bogged down or be over-aggressive. Getting the balance right is the only way to score runs in such conditions. It also confuses the bowler. Decision-making becomes very very crucial,” he added.