Explained: 'Overcooked' Virat Kohli's workload

“Virat Kohli is overcooked. If anyone needs a break, it's him.”

Ravi Shastri did not mince words when it came to describing the rut that Virat Kohli finds himself in at the moment, and called for the batting superstar to be given a break to help rediscover his old touch.

Kohli, after all, has gone through a turbulent few months of late and finds himself at one of the lowest points of his career. The crisis that Virat Kohli the batter faces at the moment can be best described by the fact that he has now gone a 100 matches across the international formats as well as in the Indian Premier League (IPL) without a century to his name. And this coming from a batter who used to score centuries in his sleep at the peak of his powers.

Worse, he was dismissed for a golden duck off Dushmantha Chameera’s bowling in Royal Challengers Bangalore’s meeting with Lucknow Super Giants at the Brabourne Stadium on Tuesday, only the fourth time he was dismissed off his first ball of the innings in the league, giving his critics even more ammunition to target him with.

The sharp decline in his batting form, as his evident from his performances in the IPL this season (119 runs; average: 19.83), and one wonders if a lengthy break to the senior cricketer would do him a world of good and revive his sagging fortunes.

“Whether it's two months or a month and a half, whether it's after England or before England — he needs a break because he has got six-seven years of cricket left in him and you don't want to lose that with a fried brain,” Shastri said during the IPL studio show on Star Sports recently, referring to India’s tour of England that takes place later this summer after the IPL.

Former England captain Kevin Pietersen echoed Shastri’s views.

“The guy has had so much to deal with, from marriage to baby to media scrutiny and all on his personal life. He is the biggest star on show. Virat Kohli needs to say, 'Cricket boots, for six months, I will see you later.' Turn off social media, go and get re-energised,” said the English batting legend in the show.

One cannot ignore the fact that it has come down to this despite the BCCI’s past attempts to manage Kohli’s workload — the former all-formats captain had been rested from quite a few assignments in the past.

India’s schedule since 2020

After their home series against Australia and the tour of New Zealand that ran from January to March, the outset of the coronavirus pandemic brought sporting events across the world to a halt for a few months and cricket too came to a standstill.

November 2020 saw the ‘Men in Blue’ finally return to action after months and India have since then had full tours of Australia and South Africa, played a Test series in England last summer along with a limited-overs tour of Sri Lanka around the same time.

They also played the World Test Championship final against New Zealand in Southampton and participated in the T20 World Cup in the UAE. As for their home seasons, they hosted teams such as England, Sri Lanka and West Indies.

How many of those have featured Kohli?

While fitness has rarely been an issue for the batting superstar, Kohli has been granted leaves in the recent past by the BCCI, including in the Test series against Australia in the 2020-21 tour in which his only appearance was in the pink-ball Test at Adelaide.

Kohli was part of both the T20I and ODI legs of the tour and captained the visitors in the first Test before returning home for the birth of his daughter. His deputy Ajinkya Rahane captained the Indians for the remainder of the series and went on to mastermind one of India’s greatest comebacks of all time.

Kohli played every single match in the home series against England, led India in the WTC final and played each of India’s four Tests in England later that year with the fifth one suspended. He featured in every single game in IPL 2021 in his final season in charge of the Royal Challengers, as well as in each of the five games in his only T20 World Cup appearance as India captain.

Kohli was granted his first break since the Australia Test series when he sat out of the T20I leg of New Zealand’s tour of India after the T20 World Cup as well as the Kanpur Test. ‘Cheeku’ returned at the helm in the Wankhede Test, before embarking on the trip to South Africa, in which he would lose the Test series after going 1-0 up at Centurion. The Test series would turn out to be his final captaincy assignment as he would step down from the role abruptly right after the Test series.

Since the South Africa trip, Kohli has been rested for the one-day series against West Indies, as well as the T20Is against Sri Lanka, both at home, giving him some much-needed rest ahead of another gruelling IPL season.

Is workload management, or the lack of it, alone to blame?

While dealing with a packed cricketing calendar isn’t anything new for Kohli, who has rarely missed the opportunity to don the national jersey for a majority of his career, age is starting to catch up with the batting icon, who turns 33 later this year.

Given the amount of sprinting and diving that he puts in on the field, and the sheer volume of assignments in a year for an elite Indian cricketer, Kohli has no choice but to be selective going forward, if he is to prolong his career by another five-six years.

“Quality of life is something very important to me. And the quality of cricket is something very important to me. Over a period of time, you want to do what you're doing day-in-and-day-out and you want to do as much as you can, but at the end of the day, you have to realize that quality is far more important than quantity. Quantity in hard work, quality in execution,” Kohli had said on the RCB Podcast recently while discussing his decision to move away from captaincy and on workload management.

Let’s not forget the new challenge presented to cricketers in the form of bio-secure bubbles, which minimises a player’s ability to freely move about beyond the hotel and the stadium, something that has become an integral part of the game in post-pandemic times. And when serving hard quarantine after arriving in a country at the start of a tour, a hotel room can become something of a posh prison for players, who are confined to the same room for days, sometimes an entire week.

Bio-bubbles can, and do take a toll on a player’s mental well-being. Just ask Glenn Maxwell.

And last, but not the least, let us also not forget the drama between Kohli and the BCCI, chiefly president Sourav Ganguly. While Kohli willingly stepped down as RCB and India T20I captain, he was removed as ODI captain by the BCCI selectors, which led to Kohli making some explosive revelations about the manner in which Ganguly and the board went about the decision.

The heat was certainly on Kohli following the war-of-words, which in turn could have had an impact on his captaincy in the Test series in South Africa, and following the stunning turnaround by the Proteas that led to the 1-2 series loss, Kohli surprised the cricketing world by suddenly resigning from Test captaincy.

The road ahead

Unless he is able to turn the tide with an explosive knock or two in the remaining games this IPL, Kohli and the BCCI could very well pay heed to Shastri’s words and give him the breather before the trip to England this year. India, after all, have a crucial calendar coming up; they will be defending the Asia Cup title in Sri Lanka before travelling to the other side of the planet for the T20 World Cup Down Under, where the ‘Men in Blue’ will hope to redeem themselves after a disappointing first-round exit last year.

Team India will need their seniors to lead from the front if they are to end their wait for another ICC title, and an ‘overcooked’ Kohli will certainly do them no favour.

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