Rohit and Kohli a huge concern with Test careers on the line

Even die-hard supporters of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma will struggle to deny that the decline of this Indian cricket team’s two biggest batsmen was emphatically underlined with a bold red marker during the tour of Australia. 

For anyone still in doubt, here are the cold, hard numbers. Rohit’s average of 6.20 in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy – which his team handed to Australia for the first time since 2017 – is the lowest ever for a visiting Test captain to Australia. Kohli’s average of 23.75 is his second lowest for any five-match series and subtract the even 100* he managed on the flattest pitch of the series after India’s openers had laid a platform for him, and he made 90 runs in eight innings, all of which ended in dismissals outside the off stump.

As the Indian management and selectors ponder the outcome of the BGT and looks ahead to a five-Test tour of England six months from now, a degree of introspection must be dedicated to the form of the team’s two most senior players. 

When India resumed playing Test cricket in September, Rohit’s career batting average was 45.46. Today, it sits at 40.57. That’s a drop of almost five runs per innings in four months. Talk about a sudden downfall. 

The 37-year-old managed a total of 31 runs with a best of 10 in Australia, and this run of low scores has extended a lean period dating back four months. Overall, in 2024, Rohit averaged under 25 from 14 Tests, and this difficult phase seems to have rattled his captaincy as well. After beating Bangladesh 2-0 in September, India lost to New Zealand 0-3 at home in a series in which Rohit averaged 11 with the bat and was visibly off-color with his field placements and bowling changes.

After missing the Perth Test on paternity leave, Rohit resumed the captaincy and has overseen two losses and a draw, which India were lucky to have escaped with due to rain in Brisbane. Noticeable has been the dramatic slowing of Rohit’s reflexes at the crease, as well as his lack of judgement. 

His dismissal on day five of the fourth Test at the MCG was a case in point, for Rohit batted about an hour without a boundary only to throw away his wicket with the first aggressive shot he attempted. Looking to whip the ball over midwicket, he ended up splicing a catch to gully. That was all Rohit could digest and come toss time at the SCG for the last match, stand-in captain Jasprit Bumrah said that Rohit had ‘opted to rest’.

Not long after Rohit’s dismissal on day five at the MCG, Kohli joined his captain in the dressing room after he was dismissed on the stroke of lunch for 5, to an all too familiar mode of dismissal. With India struggling at 33/2, and with less than two minutes left in the first session, Kohli chose to chase a wide delivery from Mitchell Starc and nicked it to first slip.

That failure on day five of the Boxing Day Test gave Kohli a Test batting average of 24.52 in 2024 and increased questions as to why he has failed to rectify a habit of playing outside the off stump that has dogged him for four years now. All eight of his dismissals on tour were edges behind the wicket. 

Since the start of 2020, Kohli is averaging 30.72 from 39 Test matches with three centuries, nine fifties and five ducks. That is more than 30% of his Test career, which highlights just how long a rope Kohli has been extended. During this lean run of form, Kohli has nicked off to pace bowlers on 24 occasions and an inability to mend his ways has not only seen his Test batting average drop from the mid-50s to under 47 today, but also let down India on too many occasions.

On a wider and more problematic scale, Rohit’s Test batting average from 25 matches in SENA countries is 28. As captain in SENA countries, Rohit averages 14.90 from six Tests. He has managed a solitary century in SENA countries. 

Kohli, since the start of 2020, averages 28 in SENA countries. He led India for two years during this time, and the results are far from inspiring. In 2020, India were beaten 0-2 in New Zealand. As the year ended, they were bowled out for 36 in Adelaide under Kohli before he left the tour. In 2021, India were ahead 2-1 over a struggling England team before the team backed out of the fifth and final Test to go play the IPL in the UAE. In 2022, India lost 1-2 in South Africa. The writing was on the wall for Kohli, as a batsman and captain. 

With six months to go until India next play Test cricket, will the selectors persist with Rohit and Kohli for the start of a new WTC cycle, or are we looking at the end of the pair in the five-day format? 

Rohit, in what can be described as some sort of PR stunt, brazenly told the host broadcaster during an interview before the second day’s play in Sydney that he was not going anywhere. In Birmingham, venue of the second Test from July 2 this summer, posters of Kohli are being used to sell tickets. 

With the chances of Rohit and Kohli returning to India and playing Ranji Trophy cricket next to impossible, all these two woefully out of form seniors have to find form in Test cricket is next month’s Champions Trophy and then the IPL. Hardly the ideal preparation for five Test matches in England. Tough calls must be taken, either by the players themselves of the BCCI selectors.