Virat Kohli Hasn't Really Played Well: Sunil Gavaskar

India vs England 2nd Test: Chasing a ball outside off, Kohli once again perished nicking the ball to the keeper.

Not at his best: Virat Kohli

Image: PTI / Alastair Grant

Indian captain Virat Kohli has scored just 119 runs in five innings since the World Test Championship final against New Zealand held in England in June. The year 2021 has also not been great for him, where he has only managed to score 291 runs in 11 innings at an average of 26.45 with two fifties, which he scored earlier this year in India. Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar feels there is a technical glitch in Kohli's game and said Kohli hasn't really played well.

The Indian captain showed some signs of form in the second innings when he hit four crisp boundaries. However, chasing a delivery outside off, he once again perished nicking the ball to the keeper, which has become a pattern in recent times.

Speaking on his similar modes of dismissals, Gavaskar said, "That method has been successful for him. He has got 8000 Test runs with that back and across movement. But he is playing at deliveries way outside off stump and a little too early in the innings. This time around, the foot is somewhere else, the bat is somewhere else, which means that he hasn't really played well," he said on the Sony Sports Network. "It could be about this much-talked-about word intent, but in a five-day game, every batsman goes in to score runs. It's the method that differs," he added.

Talking further about Kohli, Gavaskar said: "When you talk about this trying to take this attack to the opposition approach, and if that is what intent is, it can get you into trouble as we saw. I think every batsman should be left alone to find his own method. This is a Test match. In ODI and T20I, it's a completely different situation, but over here, what they need to look into is get themselves in and try to play in the old-fashioned V. Play only when you have fought through," he added.