Indian skipper Virat Kohli shed some light on what went wrong during his disastrous England tour in 2014, where he scored just 134 runs at 13.40 a piece, stating that he was “desperate to do well” there. In an interview with former England captain Nasser Hussain for the BCCI’s website, Kohli dismantled his batting technique, delving into a change in mentality and approach changed his fortunes in the recent past.
While Kohli admitted to going down a downward spiral mentally after a couple of low scores in England, he also questioned the double standards with which sub-continent batsmen are measured. “I had put too much pressure on myself before going to England that I needed to score here. I don’t know why sub-continent players are given different benchmarks that we have to perform in certain countries and if you don’t do that, you are not considered a good player. “I think it was more about me being desperate to do well in England and then when you don’t do well at start, you start going down mentally,” Kohli was quoted as saying by PTI.
Kohli pointed out that his batting stance, combined with eagerness to combat in-swingers, led to his downfall against Alastair Cook’s men in England, where he nicked the ball to the slip cordon at alarming regularity. “Technique is important but even people with not that strong technique have been able to score well there because of a good mindset. The problem with me was that I was expecting in-swingers too much and opened up my hip a lot more than I should have done. I was constantly looking for the in-swinger and was in no position to counter the outswing,” Kohli added, also observing that his toe was going towards point instead of cover point.
Kohli also revealed that it was batting legend Sachin Tendulkar’s advice that helped him change his approach, which included getting on top of the ball with a strong front foot stride, “Sachin [Tendulkar] helped as he told me that I have to approach a fast bowler [forward press] just like you approach a spinner. One has to get on top of the ball not worry about pace or swing, you got to get towards the ball and give the ball lesser chance to move around and trouble you. It helped me and became my second nature,” Kohli said.
Kohli bounced back from the England nightmare with superlative performances in the Australian summer of 2014-’15, slamming four hundreds in as many Tests. “The short ball was not an issue for me. So in Australia, I wasn’t worried about pace and bounce as I knew that I could handle it. But I stood a foot outside the crease to counter those deliveries on the corridor [outside the off-stump].”
Kohli’s numbers in 2016 were nothing short of mind-boggling, becoming the first batsman to average more than 50 in a calendar year in all three formats. The Delhi batsman said that it as a rigorous routine that helped him overcome his demons, “This change has become easy now but it was not so at the beginning. I was batting three hours a day. I had cramps in my forearms by the end of the week. I did that for about 10 days.”
“You know in golf they say you have to hit a shot 400-500 times before you can perfect that shot. So it was more about precise practice as I wanted to tune my head to play that way. I wasn’t used to forward pressing as I was waiting for the ball to clip it off my leg or waiting for short ball,” the 28-year-old said.