Virat Kohli is tired and running out of time, says former Zimbabwe all-rounder Dirk Viljoen | Cricket News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: After a break, Virat Kohli will be back in action at the upcoming Asia Cup. It’s fair to say that most, if not all, eyes will be on Kohli, who was rested for the tours of West Indies and Zimbabwe.
The upcoming Asia Cup, starting August 27, in many ways will be a testing ground for the selectors to assess Indian talent ahead of the T20 World Cup in Australia later this year. The million dollar question is – if Virat doesn’t come good with the bat with consistent high scores etc, will his spot in the T20 World Cup squad be in danger?
WHAT THE NUMBERS SAY
Kohli hasn’t scored an international century since November 2019, but it would be incorrect and unfair to say that he hasn’t been among the runs for his team.
Kohli, who has 23,726 international runs in 463 matches (ODIs, Tests, and T20Is), is fourth on the list of Indian Test run getters, since his last international century, after Rishabh Pant (1369 runs in 20 matches), Cheteshwar Pujara (1052 runs in 21 matches) and Rohit Sharma (996 runs in 13 matches). Kohli in this period has played 18 Tests (since November 2019) and scored 872 runs at an average of 27.25, including 6 fifties.

In ODIs, the 33-year-old Virat has 824 runs in 23 matches (since Nov 2019), averaging 35.82, including 10 half-centuries. He is the third highest Indian run-getter after Shikhar Dhawan (1129 runs in 25 matches) and KL Rahul (961 runs in 22 matches) in this format for this period.

Kohli’s T20I performance meanwhile has been phenomenal in the last three years. He has averaged above 50 in 27 matches and scored 858 runs, including 8 fifties. He is second to only Rohit Sharma (948 runs) on the runs scored by Indians in T20Is list in the period since his last international century in November 2019.

Former Zimbabwe all-rounder Dirk Viljoen however feels that time is running out for Virat to keep himself in the reckoning for a fixed spot in the Indian playing XI.
Viljoen, who played 2 Tests and 53 ODIs for Zimbabwe, spoke to TimesofIndia.com in an exclusive interview about this and much more…
Can Virat Kohli regain his lost touch and go on a run-making spree again, you think?
It is the same argument as KL Rahul. Whether it was injury forced or not. And have a look at this recent talk of Ben Stokes retiring from one-day cricket. That was a huge disaster because he’s such an entertainer. And retiring from one-day cricket sort of was a huge disappointment. But the kind of pressure that these players are under is huge at the moment. And it’s not so much performance pressure, but just the amount of cricket that they play. So, if you don’t see them in international cricket, they’re playing all over – Pakistan Premier League, the Dubai Premier League, we got the new one starting in South Africa, there’s the 100. I mean it just doesn’t stop. It’s great from a cricketing perspective.

At some stage, a player needs to sit back and think. Virat has that extra pressure. He has so much more pressure because there’s a (certain) level of expectation from him. Sachin Tendulkar in our day was the same. Sachin Tendulkar was just amazing. Sachin was maybe a little bit luckier because there wasn’t the pressure of so much extra cricket. There wasn’t an IPL in our days. There wasn’t the Dubai League, there wasn’t the Pakistan Premier League, there wasn’t the Big Bash or The Hundred. We didn’t have all of it. So, by nature, players got to rest. They got to just step back, take a breath and start again. I can’t see Virat having done that. And as he’s not performing, it gets worse and worse. His problem is compounded. Because if you watch him play, he isn’t changing technique. He is still playing the same way that Virat Kohli has always played. He’s just not able to score the big runs that he used to. He’s tired.

Virat Kohli (Getty Images)
Virat is running out of time. He should be like – ‘yes, I’m going to have a rest and then I’m going to make myself available for the World Cup’. (But) He just doesn’t have the time to do it at the moment because he needs to be playing cricket to get his form back. We watched AB de Villiers retire from international cricket, came back, and played IPL. Virat Kohli can still do that. But I think what he needs to do is just take a break, switch off (from) social media, get away from the news, go and rest somewhere on a beach, recharge the batteries, like KL Rahul might have done, and come back and go right.
There is some talk that with so many options available in the T20I format, Virat might struggle to make the T20 World Cup squad. Would you be surprised if he is not selected for the World Cup?
I don’t think I would. It would be brave. But it will be a good move. I remember when I retired from my career and everyone said, what did you do when you retired? Did you make big news about it? And I remember thinking to myself, cricket is bigger than an individual. It’s bigger than me. And it’s bigger than you. And unfortunately, whether he likes it or not, cricket is bigger than Virat. So, there are two things that happen – India are compelled to pick their best 15. And if at the time you’re not part of that 15, then you’re not going to get selected.
You have played against the likes of Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, and Virender Sehwag. Do you have any favourite memories of playing against them?
It was different in our day. I used to love my tours to India. It was some of the toughest cricket that I ever played. I actually remember bowling to Sourav Ganguly at Feroz Shah Kotla. He hit me onto the top tier. Grant Flower was standing next to me and he started laughing at me. And I said to him, what are you laughing at? This is an international cricket game. He says – I’ve never seen a six that big in my life. We had great memories and great competitions against India.

Dirk Viljoen
We didn’t win a lot of games against India, but we like to think that we competed. And when we did win against India, it was a big feat for us because India was a heck of a side. And I look back at those memories. I was not a great cricketer. I played for Zimbabwe, but when I compare myself to Sachin Tendulkar or Sourav Ganguly or in those days, whoever was playing, for example, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble, we fall into insignificance and it’s great to see them still around. On their last tour, he (Ganguly) was captaining India and he actually left me his cricket bat. I never used it. In case he’s listening or going to read the newspaper, it was way too heavy for me. But clearly, it worked for him and helped him hit me over the Feroz Shah Kotla ground.
How would you compare the captaincy style of a modern cricketer to that of someone from say the 1990s…
It’s quite a hard one. It’s sort of like comparing cricketers nowadays to yesteryear cricketers, because the game has changed so much. My son saw Ganguly sitting in the stands and he asked me did you play against him? I said -y eah, I played against him. He said, was he good? And I was like, he was great. My son will go – what was great about him? And I can’t answer the question, because you’re trying to compare a modern-day cricketer with say a 1990s cricketer. And it’s very difficult because the game has changed so much.
In our days, if you scored 220, we had a strike rate of 80 with a bat, and you were doing okay. Now, you wouldn’t make the B side if you were playing like that. So, they’re really hard to compare. One thing that they all have or seem to have, is that they demand respect from the players. I think they have that. And they naturally get that from the players. And the key to a captain, for me, as much as he’s got to be very strategic, is if he has quality man management skills, I think then he’s a step ahead of everyone else.
And I believe in our days, Alastair Campbell, that’s what he had, you always have a team of senior players which is going to give you input on strategy. That’s why you have a senior group. But if, in my opinion, a captain has really good man management skills, and his team enjoys playing for him, he’ll be successful. And I have a look at that in the Indian setup. The other thing that Rohit Sharma does, is that he commands respect because he leads from the front. He opens the batting. He’s the first one out there. And everyone respects that. So, I think that comparing them is really difficult. They all have their little areas. But for me, a captain should always be first and foremost. If his man management is good, he’ll be a good leader.
You were an all-rounder during your playing days. What is your opinion of Hardik Pandya, the all-rounder? Any other Indian all-rounder who has impressed you?
He’s (Hardik Pandya) only just started. I think he’s still got so much more to offer. And I think what makes him a great all-rounder is that he’s very unique. He has unbelievable power. He is great in the field. There’s nothing that he cannot do. And I think India needs to find a way where they can really look after Pandya because he’s going to play a big role. And you have a look at all-rounders around the world, I would even go as far as saying in the T20 game Pandya could open the bowling and he could probably bat at number three if you really wanted him to. And that’s the flexibility of the guy. He’s a finisher.

He has the ability to turn a game on its head. Have I seen anyone as good as him? I know that there are world rankings for all-rounders. I think he should be way ahead. I do know that the rankings are probably done more on game time and endpoints. But you watch him that when you have someone like him, every team wants him on his side. He’s arguably one of the best all-rounders. You look at Ben Stokes who’s a great all-rounder. You look at Kieron Pollard who in his younger years was a great all-rounder. I can’t see any limitation to Pandya at the moment.
Your take on why Zimbabwe cricket has been on the decline…
It’s a hard one. Cricket has changed. I have a look back to our playing days and when we used to play against Australia – in those days, in the late 90s, Australia were, in my opinion, unbeatable. The likes of the Warnes, the Haydens, the Waughs, all those kinds of players that just made them unbelievably good and teams really struggled to not just beat them, but also compete against them. And then all of a sudden, Australia went into this low because the reality is that players can’t play forever, they’re going to retire. So, Shane Warne retired, Adam Gilchrist retired, Hayden retired and all of a sudden, they went into a rebuilding process. Why Zimbabwe has struggled is because they’ve been too slow on the rebuilding process. I’m old now, I’m 45 years old, I am not going to make any more returns to the cricket field. But maybe the problem was that when our crop of players fell away, who was in a position to take over? Having said that, other structures in Zimbabwe are too far behind.

Zimbabwe cricket team (AP Photo)
Australia took years to get back to where it needed to be. They really struggled. They were trying to find a model that worked. Because, in Test cricket, Shane Warne, if he was in your team, he bowled the team out. Go to Sri Lanka, you had Muralitharan. He owned batsmen in his days. Sachin Tendulkar – you hated bowling to him. But players have to retire and they disappear. A nation has to ensure when a player retires, someone’s going to step up. Zimbabwe is heading into the same problem again. Sean Williams is approaching 40, Craig Irvin is approaching 40, and Sikander Raza is approaching 40. There are three already that I’ve named, that potentially will not be around for too much longer. What has Zimbabwe got as a plan? Because if you go back to our days back in the 90s we only had three first-class teams. We only had three first-class teams in our domestic structure. Maybe that was the problem because we didn’t have a big structure.
When a couple of players decided to retire, replacing those players was really difficult. Zimbabwe currently has five first-class teams. But are we ensuring that the crop that is looking at taking over the mantle from Craig Irvin, Sikandar Raza, and Sean Williams is in place already? A lot of countries, not only Zimbabwe, have fallen short and in my opinion, Australia is the biggest example.