Ever since the home season for India started last month against Bangladesh, Virat Kohli has not been in the greatest of forms. The ex-captains score in his last eight innings reads 6, 17, 47, 29*, 0, 70, 1 and 17. Even his statistics against spin within 50 innings since 2021 are worrying. He has been dismissed by spinners 24 times with an average of 33.38. In addition, he has not been able to hit a Test ton for more than a year now, the last being his career’s 29th.
While the tenure of BCCI has levied the condition of domestic cricket in-order to have the international cricket consistent, some pundits are of the opinion that it is time for Virat Kohli as well to rethink his strategy and rework his basics.
Former India wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik highlighted Kohli’s struggles against spin and his inability to perform in the ongoing Test series against New Zealand. It was at this time that Karthik turned to Cricbuzz and noted that Kohli has been trying to solve a number of problems, most related to his technique against spinners.
“He has not had an easy time, not a good series for him three out of four innings been a let down. That is clearly a trend as a problem area for him and I do believe he will go and do whatever is needed to come back better. He is a man in search of solutions. At the point of which you become that type of genius and that type of star then there are other types of challenges that come and this happens to be one of them. India prefers surfaces that support spin, what does he intend to do? said Dinesh Karthik while featuring on Cricbuzz
The player-turned-commentator also added that Kohli should take a break and return to playing domestic cricket – something he has not done since 2012 – and work on the fundamentals.
‘It is well known, what he can achieve, this particular series was not supposed to happen. As the supporters have said he has not been able to do so because it has been a while and we cannot hide from that. No, we do not seek to minimize the realities because we wish to evaluate every player, every performance dispassionately, even at this point. Karthik stated that especially when it comes to Virat Kohli’s Test cricket over the last 2 years there hasn’t been much to talk about in terms of him playing good spin.’
“What he needs to do, is perhaps, return back to playing domestic cricket and put his concentration on what is expected on him with respect to the current DRS rules. For sure, the left-arm spinners are a great challenge,” he concluded.