Should Virat Kohli be open to changing his batting position?

Although there have been reports of a drop in Virat Kohli’s form in recent years, before the IPL, he had been striking the ball well, consistently recording half-centuries, and there was no evidence of a dramatic decrease.

However, despite a solid start to the IPL season, Kohli has seemed a pale shadow of the powerful Kohli who commanded world cricket for the previous decade. His poor shots appear to be more common than before, and even when he’s set in the crease, he’s vulnerable to being out. In white-ball cricket, Kohli has never appeared more vulnerable than in the IPL 2022. It shows that he should try something different this season, and opening seems to be the best option possible as he has incredible stats as an opener, and things are not right with the current opening order. Let’s take a dig at the same in detail.

What’s wrong with the current opening pair:

In this IPL, Anuj Rawat was to open the batting alongside du Plessis, with the concept that he would go hard in the powerplay as du Plessis played himself. Rawat has 129 runs at an average of 18.4 with a strike rate of 111.2, but more crucially, he has faced 50% dot balls. After seven matches, it’s evident that the template isn’t working.

Royal Challenger Banglore’s approach in the opening half of the innings, when they have the lowest scoring rate of all teams, has been influenced by Rawat’s failure and tendency to play out too many dots. With Virat Kohli struggling and Faf du Plessis’ form fluctuating, the team needs to try something different in their batting order.

They are in a good position this season because Dinesh Kartik and Shahbaz Ahmed provide the team with much-needed firepower, but that alone can’t make them the champion team because the top-order needs to do something impactful inning too.

Should try new opener- Virat Kohli

Everyone knows about the peak form shown by Virat Kohli in the 2016 IPL when the former Indian skipper tried something different and promoted himself up the order. This season has been one that Kohli would like to forget, as he has scored only 119 runs in 8 innings. Kohli has opened 76 times in IPL and scored 2750 runs while having an impressive average of 43.65. 

Kohli has benefited from his clarity at the top of the order, with the former RCB captain gladly accepting the job last year. Kohli has a strike rate of over 135 in the powerplay overs when opening the batting in the IPL. The number drastically decreases to 106.1 when batting at No 3, owing to the early wicket that sends him to the crease. 

His overall strike rate also rises a lot when he’s opening compared to when he’s batting at number 3 and lower. He has a strike rate of 136.68 as an opener which dips to 123.79 when he’s batting at 3.

Former cricketer RP Singh said, “He has raised the bar so high that we cannot digest the fact that he is not able to score a hundred. No one would have dreamt that Kohli would get out for golden ducks twice in a row. Something will have to change so that he can forget what happened in the last two games. He can come in and open, where he has done very well in the IPL.”

Will help in balancing the team:

The deadly duo of Faf and Virat can create a menace and will be very hard for opposing teams to stop as they both are capable of leading the innings for the franchise once they are settled. These two quality batsmen make sure to play till the end when it’s their day, giving Royal Challengers Bangalore the support they seek from the top order in the batting line-up. 

They can also try left-hander Mahipal Lomror in place of Anuj Rawat, as Lomror was a standout in the middle order for Rajasthan Royals last season and enjoyed success for his state team Rajasthan in his domestic career.