T20 World Cup 2024 squad analysis: Kohli’s slow pace isn’t keeping pace with changing times, but India still need him

For the past three years, Virat Kohli’s approach to T20 cricket has been questionable, but now he finds himself in another World Cup squad. The trade-off is that India lack a true finisher in the playing XI.

India’s approach to T20Is has historically mirrored its strategy in ODIs, prioritizing wickets over boundaries. But there are plenty of signs that that attitude is changing, but perhaps at a glacial pace.

Kohli has a high average and his strike rates tend to increase as the innings goes deeper. Kohli has a strike rate of less than 140 in T20Is at an average of more than 53 in the last five years. For Royal Challengers Bangalore, he averages less than 40 (35.07) and strikes less than 130 in the same timeline.

A look at what Kohli has been doing in the powerplay and subsequent overs will further clarify the picture. For India, over the last five years, Kohli has batted slowly at the start, cruising at 111.28, and then ramped it up to 128 between 7 and 16. But if they make it to the last four, they will be stuck with the bowlers. 213. In the Indian Premier League (IPL), for the same timeline, Kohli’s powerplay, middle-over and death-over strike rates are: 129.69, 116.61, and 206.50.

In fact, Kohli’s overall strike rate is no. 3 – where he usually bats for India in T20Is – average strike rates in the early 130s for teams like South Africa, Australia and the West Indies have been one down in the last two years. North of 150. England, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Pakistan and Afghanistan no. 3’s have the lowest combined strike rate.

Achilles heel

Kohli is scoring at a strike rate of 147 in this year’s IPL. Only once has he scored the fastest and that was in 2016 (152.03), when he scored 973 runs – the most by any player in an IPL season. Kohli scored his eighth IPL century against Rajasthan Royals this year, his 113 not out against Royals being his joint highest score in the T20 league. But he took 67 balls to get there, becoming the joint slowest century in the IPL with Manish Pandey’s century against the now-defunct Deccan Chargers in 2009.

Kohli’s innings in Jaipur was a perfect epitome of his T20 batting. His strike rate was 190 off the last 22 balls he faced. But he scored less than 130 runs in the first 25 balls, while he scored 156 runs in the next 25 balls. It is now clear that T20 batsman Kohli is at his devastating best when he is operating between 17 and 20 overs. .

However, Kohli seems to adopt a less risk-averse approach to batting inside the first six overs in this IPL, looking to hit upwards to find the fence. “They probably want me to come to them so they can get me out or have an early breakthrough. But I feel if I am set and I bat more than six overs, our chances of getting a good total are better,” Kohli said after his century against the Royals.

Kohli is a classical top-order batsman who often finds purpose when the demands of the T20 game deserve a modern upgrade to a role where India is no longer short of options. Kohli likes pace on the ball, which partly explains why he excels in the death overs, a stage where opposition captains usually turn to their pace bowlers.

Kohli, of late, has struggled to maintain his momentum outside the powerplay, especially against spin bowling, where he is susceptible to sustaining strikes from more destructive players trained to excel at this stage. In effect, Kohli’s ability to positively impact the game is largely determined by whether he survives the powerplay and middle overs, but this sometimes leaves the rest of his team to cover most of the ground. It is a formulaic approach that is highly predictable and therefore, vulnerable to detection.

The ICC phenomenon

The top four team of captain Rohit Sharma, Yassavi Jaiswal, Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav was more or less decided before the official announcement. The selectors and Rohit are taking a punt on Kohli’s ability to perform under pressure. Kohli has shown a strong temperament when it comes to big matches. He respects his opponents but does not fear them. This quality is especially important in high-pressure tournaments where nerves get the best of players. A good example of Kohli’s composure was at a packed MCG in Australia against Pakistan in the 2022 T20 World Cup chase. Kohli scored 39 runs off 14 balls that night with a strike rate of 278.57. But at one stage, Kohli scored 12 runs in 21 balls and kept batting. Kohli’s average from nine successful run chases in the T20 World Cup is an incredible 518. He has seven fifties and was dismissed only once.

Virat Kohli hits a six during the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup match between India and Pakistan at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. | Photo credit: GETTY IMAGES

India lacked the batting depth of other T20I teams in the past, making it difficult for key batsmen to be ultra-aggressive up front. Not only that, India’s top five players also contributed significantly with the ball in the early 2000s. However, the current primary batsmen do not have the same level of contribution with the ball, which puts pressure on the team management to include a front-line spinner at number seven. As a result, the team’s tail gets longer and the top order has to be more careful and restrained in its approach.

But with the emergence of Rinku Singh, the flamboyance of Suryakumar, the evolution of Sanju Samson and the rebirth of Shivam Dubey, those headaches seem to have receded for now. This should ease some pressure on Kohli. Yes, apart from Jasprit Bumrah, there is a strong argument that India’s bowling is a bit shaky, which is doubly important for Rohit’s men to win the boundary-percentage count. Kohli will pay attention to that too.

He recently shrugged off criticism of his strike-rate against spin after scoring an unbeaten 70 off 44 balls in Ahmedabad.

“All the people who talk about strike rates and I don’t play spin well, like to talk about it. But for me, it’s just about winning the match for the team,” Kohli said after the match. “And there’s a reason why you do it for 15 years—because you do this Day in and day out; you won matches for your teams.

Even in T20 cricket, the amount of runs is not a problem for Kohli. India will only hope that come the T20 World Cup, they will continue to score the same runs at a higher strike rate and more relevantly.