Virat Kholi | IPL 2024 | T20 World Cup 2024 | Indian Cricket Team: 17th IPL (Indian Premier League – 2024) The T20 cricket festival has been going on in India since March 22. Royal Challengers Bangalore star Virat Kohli scored an unbeaten 113 off 72 balls in this series against Rajasthan Royals. With this, he registered his 8th century in IPL. Among his hundreds, this century was the slowest in the history of the tournament.

With India’s squad for the T20 World Cup to be held in the Caribbean and America to be announced in a couple of weeks, it is clear that if Kohli is to make it to the Indian team, he will have to start his batting spree. Because nowadays T20 has become more and more determined by strike rates rather than form and batting averages. Also, the selectors are currently giving more importance to the players who swing the bat aggressively from the beginning of the game and there is no chance in the team for the players who want to play consistently. Even Valam Kohli as the best player is not immune to this argument. He should not slow down in the middle overs after getting a start in the power-play.

Rewinding the match later that evening in Jaipur, Kohli’s century (which came in 67 balls) was first batted over a two-speed stretch. Pushing his team to 183 for 3. The rest of the Royal Challengers Bangalore batsmen scored just 59 runs off 48 balls apart from 11 extra runs. The team lost only three wickets against Kohli.

Jos Buttler scored an unbeaten 100 off 58 balls to lead his team to a five-wicket win. This prompts an in-depth look at Kohli’s game. Two games later, Butler showed he has another way of getting the job done. Chasing 224 against Kolkata Knight Riders, he managed just 50 off 36 balls in the 15th over, by which time Rajasthan had lost six wickets. But in the run chase that followed, Buttler scored 107 off 60 balls to give the team a thrilling victory off the last ball.

In a way, Buttler’s methods shed light on Kohli’s dilemma, pick-up rates.

Goalie template

For starters, RCB’s traditional template is fitted with Kohli and Faf du Plessis as their batting fortunes. A random cast of players swirls around them. This is a fundamental problem for both the individual and the team.

Since 2023, Kohli has scored 1,000 runs for RCB, closely followed by du Plessis with 962. The duo has scored 53.91 runs per cent (3639) with 19 other batsmen in RCB’s 21 matches. Compare that with Mumbai Indians, the team that scored the most runs (3,928) during this period. Mumbai’s top three run-makers are Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan and Rohit Sharma. They have produced only 48 per cent of the team’s runs since 2023, which illustrates the great potential for the varied and varied roles of each batsman in the line-up. Mumbai’s strike rate for this period is 153.49, and RCB are fourth with a strike rate of 146.85.

Kohli has a strike rate of 142.45 and du Plessis has scored 153.92 runs. They were the most (1,282 runs) opening pair in the last one-and-a-half seasons. However, this did not stop it from being at the bottom of the points list.

The goalie is not as reliant on a big hitter, and the league’s leading run scorer is always considered its biggest anchor or top scorer. His overall IPL Powerplay strike rate is 120.05. In 2016, his best season, he scored 119.06 with first sixes in 16 innings, but he made the most of the 13 occasions he went in the middle overs. Kohli plundered 490 runs that season at a strike rate of 150.76 – almost 25 runs better than his career total.

Although his powerplay returns improved in the following years, Kohli suffered a decline in the middle overs, especially against spin. Between 2017 and 2022, he amassed 931 runs at an average of 44.33 against tweakers between 7-16 overs. However, his strike rate (114.79) was the lowest of the 11 batsmen who compiled at least 750 runs during that period. His relative strike rate against pace was over 120.

While Kohli’s strike rate has seen an uptick in the powerplay and middle overs since the 2023 edition, the pick-up rate after the start is still modest compared to Buttler, the league’s most efficient opener, with 6 of his last 36 match-winning hundreds coming from the 2022 innings.

During this period, Buttler has batted decently (SR: 130.94) in the powerplay, slightly lower than Kohli (134.67). Both are clear that they need to play long, play up to 6 overs and play innings sporadically. But it was in the middle overs that Buttler scored 147.80 runs more than Kohli.

If all these are prerequisites for Kohli’s inclusion in India’s T20 squad, then it is clear that the opener’s slot is the only viable option given his accumulation and aggressive early form.

What are India’s options?

After two consecutive defeats in the T20 World Cup, India need to see a stylistic change soon to improve their fortunes this year. Kohli at number three is unlikely to be a viable option for India. But, as he does in the IPL, at best, his T20 prowess can be used as an opener, enabling an earlier entry for the quick scorers in the middle order.

While captain Rohit Sharma has been confirmed at one end, Kohli is likely to clash with Shubman Gill and Yashaswi Jaiswal. Since 2023, Kohli (468), Gill (474) and Jaiswal (467) have scored almost identical runs in the powerplay. Left-hander Jaiswal stands out with his aim, scoring over 10 runs an over. The aggressiveness has come with a lot of risk, falling 11 in 21 innings inside the powerplay while doing a fair job. Gill (rpo 8.75) and Kohli (8.38) perform with fewer opportunities at the stage.

However, Gill (9.53) improves his striking by almost 10 runs in the middle overs, Kohli stagnates at 8.20 and Jaiswal drops to 8.31. A direct correlation can be seen between these striking patterns and handling of the spin between overs 7-16 – Gill leads the way with 158.93 SR, while Kohli (133.96) and Jaiswal (138.88) lag behind. Interestingly, Gill and Kohli have played 6 innings each at the death (16-20 overs). Jaiswal, on the other hand, scored 39 runs off 14 balls and reached the slack overs only once.

While Gill’s numbers are healthy overall, it’s worth noting that 63 percent of his runs over the past two seasons have come at his home ground, the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. Kohli’s 57 per cent in Bengaluru, Jaiswal’s 39.4 per cent in Jaipur.

In the last T20I that India played in January, Jaiswal jumped into Gill Rohit’s preferred opener, with Kohli at 3. According to the latest IPL data, Rohit and Jaiswal are the pair for the fastest start, albeit with high risk. Didn’t get past the powerplay.

Jaiswal’s indifferent start to this IPL season may force the selectors to take a deep look and look at Kohli’s recent progress on the strike rate front.