With Indian batsman Virat Kohli falling against the leg-spin of Rishad Hossain during India’s six-wicket win over Bangladesh in their opening match of the Champions Trophy in Dubai, it meant that the 36-year-old was dismissed for the fifth time by a leg-spinner in his last six ODIs. Kohli, who is currently 15 runs short of the 14,000 ODI runs mark, fell to a full delivery by Rishad Hossain as his late cut resulted in a catch to Soumya Sarkar at an individual score of 28 runs. Former Indian spinner and coach Anil Kumble sees these dismissals as Kohli trying too hard to score runs and not playing his natural game.
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“To start off against spin, on surfaces like that, you need a lot of confidence. He’s certainly trying too hard to manoeuvre that. He’s a good player of spin when he’s in form, when he’s wanting to just knock singles off and keep rotating the strike. Now he’s trying too hard to score runs rather than just manoeuvre, and that’s been his game plan. All players go through tough moments in their career, but I get a feeling watching him bat, I think he is putting a lot more pressure on himself. He just needs to relax a little bit and not worry too much about the outcome of what happens on the field rather than just go out there and have the freedom to just go and play naturally, which he does really well,” Kumble said on ESPNcricinfo.
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Post the 2023 World Cup, Kohli had only played in six ODIs with only one half-century in those six matches. During the Sri Lanka ODI series last year, Kohli’s dismissals came against leg-spinners Wanindu Hasaranga, Jeffrey Vandersay and left-arm wrist spinner Dunith Wellalage. During the ODI series against England early this month, Kohli fell twice to England leg-spinner Rashid Khan. Kohli had a lean patch in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia as he scored a total of 190 runs at an average of 23.75 in nine innings. Kumble sees the lean patch as the reason for Kohli trying ‘too hard’. “Having been through a lean patch, so to speak, especially in white-ball cricket – he hasn’t had that kind of run for a long period of time – I feel he’s trying a bit too hard. You have that in players who have been there and done that before, and everyone sort of looks up to you saying he’s the guy who’s going to take the game away and he’s the one guy who is the important man in the team,” said Kumble.
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The former Indian spinner also shared how Kohli needs to stop worrying and play with the kind of freedom Indian skipper Rohit Sharma displays.”I think he’s trying a bit too hard. You can see that in the way he is going about his innings. He just needs to not worry about it. Rohit [Sharma] comes in there, has the freedom because there is plenty of batting and all of them are in great form. Similarly for Virat, he just needs to come in and not worry about anything else,” said Kumble.
