Is Indian Batting Line-Up Overdependent on Virat Kohli?

Feb 19, 2018 at 12:20 PM

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Is Indian Batting Line-Up Overdependent on Virat Kohli?

Virat Kohli’s rapid and sustained rise over the last few years has brought inexorable comparisons with Sachin Tendulkar. Since making his debut for India, Kohli has outclassed everyone in acing the chasing game. India now has 30 wins under their belt whenever Kohli has scored a hundred. While 19 of those came in successful run chases in ODIs.

Kohli’s rise as a batsman:

Since taking India to an ICC U19 World Cup win, Kohli didn’t have to look back. He soon made his senior team debut against Sri Lanka. He was also one the member of the 2011 World Cup winning team.

However, In 2012, four years after his India debut, Kohli forced the cricket world’s attention upon himself. In the fourth and final Test of a dismal Australia tour for India, who were already 3-0 down, Kohli came to the fore with a composed 116 in Adelaide. It was his maiden Test hundred, and the only century by an Indian batsman on that tour.

Global sports round up, Virat Kohli, Arsenal, Mesut Ozil, Football, Cricket
Photo Credit: Getty Images.

Furthermore, in the ODI triangular that followed, he uncorked an astonishing, unbeaten 86-ball 133 to help India chase down 321 in 36.4 overs against Sri Lanka. Soon after, he made an ODI career-best 183 against Pakistan in a chase of 331.

After the humiliation by James Anderson in England, he made this technical adjustment on the advice of India coach Ravi Shastri and scored four centuries including twin hundreds in Adelaide. He finished the series as the second-highest run-getter behind Smith, as Australia won 2-0.

Failure of the middle-order:

Though India has an astonishing win percentage in ODIs of late, India’s middle-order remains a reason for worry. The bulk of the runs have been scored by the top-order batsmen namely Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, and Virat Kohli.

However, India has failed to found a proper second drop batsman. They have tried and tasted a few in the form of Manish Pandey, Shreyas Iyer, and Ajinkya Rahane; however, nobody showed the level of consistency needed to cement the spot.

Kohli and his team management has done a lot of permutations and combinations but failed to strike a balance. Cricketers have chipped in when necessary but failed to provide the support.

Keeping the recently concluded South Africa series is mind, the middle-order has not been tested to great effect. Rahane got the opportunity to bat at No 4, however, he managed to score a single fifty from the six games.

Hardik Pandya, who got a nod ahead of MS Dhoni also failed to impress the selectors.

Despite that, India has great win percentage and recently they leapfrogged South Africa to become the top-ranked ODI team.

Virat Kohli India Sri Lanka Delhi
Virat Kohli. Image Courtesy: BCCI

South Africa series:

The Test series was a perfect example of India’s dependence on Kohli. Further, Kohli was the lone centurion across both teams and was easily the top-scorer with 286 runs at an average of 47.66. Pandya scored 119 runs at an average of 19.83 to become the second highest scorer.

Murali Vijay (102 runs, average 17), Cheteshwar Pujara (100 runs, avg 16.66), and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (101 runs, avg 33.66) were the only batsmen to get past the 100-run mark.

While the wickets in Tests offered help to the bowlers, the ODI surfaces gave much assistance to the batters.

India banked on Kohli’s three centuries as they scripted history in the Rainbow Nation. Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma also notched once century each. However, Sharma failed in the rest five games which will put a question mark on his run-scoring spree in overseas conditions.

Rahane did not make proper use of his chances in the other games despite India being in good positions and him getting overs to bat.

Dhoni has remained unbeaten in two of the three innings he has played in which he has scored 56 runs. However, his 43 in the fifth game once again proved that his hitting skills are long gone.

Image Courtesy: Twitter

Is Indian batting-order overdependent on Kohli:

The numbers will tell you India is not over-dependent on Kohli – at least not yet. However, they have not yet found a proper No 4, the slot vacated by Yuvraj Singh.

The statistics reveal that despite Kohli’s brilliant contribution to India’s successful chases, the team hasn’t been overly dependent on him. Cricketers have come good whenever needed.

However, with the World Cup looming ahead, the Indian skipper could do well with more support from his other mates.

Further, here is the newsfeed:

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