What do you think of Virat Kohli?

[TheJediBrah]

Interesting way to assess Kohli as a T20 bat, if not slightly oversimplified, but not totally untrue either, especially when comparing with AB's numbers. Thoughts?


Blogs: Kartikeya Date: Two myths about the IPL | Cricket Blogs | ESPN Cricinfo

The 2016 IPL was a record-breaking tournament for India's Test captain. Two tropes about the season have become apparent. First, that Virat Kohli is a great T20 player. Second, that the best bowling attack in the tournament defeated the best batting line-up. Both claims are arguably false.

Let's consider the first. Kohli was not even the best player in the Royal Challengers Bangalore side, let alone in the IPL. He seemed to attempt to make the transition from batting to hitting during the course of the tournament, but he never quite shed his classical training as a batsman. In the final, for example, he made 54 off 35 balls. He used up more than 25% of the deliveries available to his team and scored at less than the overall asking rate. He made only 15 off his first 18 balls. A true-blue T20 hitter would not have waited 18 balls to tee off when faced with an asking rate of ten runs per over. The problem with waiting that long is that one has to then pull off slogs for much longer in order to break even.

When the asking rate is ten runs per over over 20 overs, there simply aren't many options. This is not a problem of the imagination, it is a compulsion of arithmetic. The great difference between Kohli and AB de Villiers (the best player in the 2016 RCB side) is that de Villiers can tee off from the start if need be. De Villiers found the boundary once every 4.3 balls. Kohli was a whole delivery slower, at 5.3 balls per boundary. Each hit almost the same number of sixes through the competition (37 for de Villiers, 38 for Kohli), and Kohli faced 233 extra deliveries.

By all conventional measures of batting, Kohli on current form must be considered ahead of de Villiers. He made more runs at a better average and was dismissed less often. But in a T20 game circa now, 11 de Villierses would beat 11 Kohlis, on average by 20 runs.



It is clear that Kohli is an exceptional batsman, but batting - the art of building innings and navigating different types of bowling on different types of pitches reliably and scoring big runs - is a distraction in T20. In 16 matches, Kohli brought RCB 973 runs for 12 dismissals at 152 runs per 100 balls. Would RCB not have been better off getting those 973 runs spread over two or three batsmen at a strike rate of closer to 180-190? They had the wickets to spare.

It is a basic rule in cricket that attempting to score quickly results in more wickets falling. The charts below demonstrate this. The first is a plot of the scoring rate in an over in all T20 matches against the number of wickets lost in that over. As the scoring rate increases, so does the number of wickets.

IMO that is almost entirely, totally untrue

the kind of logic I would have used when I was a child. Or Kiwiviktor.

 

[Zinzan]

Article wholly lacking in any thinking regarding how complex adaptive systems like a team work.

Of course it's oversimplified, although I do think the case of AB being more valuable with the high SR yet lower average is true.

Also think in another 5 years we'll be slightly closely to this philosophy.

 

[Zinzan]

IMO that is almost entirely, totally untrue

the kind of logic I would have used when I was a child. Or Kiwiviktor.

T20 is a little more childish though, but yeah it did remind me of Kiwi, although he applied it to ODIs.

 

[harsh.ag]

Of course it's oversimplified, although I do think the case of AB being more valuable with the high SR yet lower average is true.

Also think in another 5 years we'll be slightly closely to this philosophy.

AB will not have that record but for the existence of Kohli coming to bat before him. Article makes no sense.

 

[Jono]

What point is the article making? If it is saying AB is better than Kohli, fine. But he's arguing AB is better, but opens up saying Kohli isn't necessarily a great T20 player. That's just a stupid comment and his analysis doesn't mean Kohli isn't great.

 

[91Jmay]

I think the point the article is making is basically that if you take up as many balls as Kohli does your strike rate probably needs to be higher. He just does it in an over egged and inflammatory way. Not really sure I agree with him either. Would just suggest the other batsmen up their strike rates as they know Kohli is so consistent.

 

[indiaholic]

Kartikeya Date is terrible. Absolutely **** at his job. But then that is true for all their stats based writers.

 

[Zinzan]

AB will not have that record but for the existence of Kohli coming to bat before him. Article makes no sense.

Nah, Article might be a long way off, but AB's good enough to not rely on earlier batsmen to do his thing, as he's proved many times before, including his match-winning innings (79* off 46) in the semi after Kohli was dismissed for a duck. Let's not pretend AB isn't AB.

 

[indiaholic]

I think the point the article is making is basically that if you take up as many balls as Kohli does your strike rate probably needs to be higher. He just does it in an over egged and inflammatory way. Not really sure I agree with him either. Would just suggest the other batsmen up their strike rates as they know Kohli is so consistent.

Any analysis of that type which does not go into the specifics of what Kohli is doing when he is scoring slowly is ****. Is he just blocking deliveries for dots with the odd boundary in between? Or is he taking singles and thus ensuring that Gayle and ABDV get most of the strike?

 

[harsh.ag]

Nah, Article might be a long way off, but AB's good enough to not rely on earlier batsmen to do his thing, as he's proved many times before, including his match-winning innings (79* off 46) in the semi after Kohli was dismissed for a duck. Let's not pretend AB isn't AB.

Let's not pretend he is something else either with a couple of instances. When he and Kohli (and Gayle) don't play together in T20s, his overall record suffers, esp SR.

 

[indiaholic]

Nah, Article might be a long way off, but AB's good enough to not rely on earlier batsmen to do his thing, as he's proved many times before, including his match-winning innings (79* off 46) in the semi after Kohli was dismissed for a duck. Let's not pretend AB isn't AB.

Agreed. AB is almost certainly the more valuable T20 player. The article does a terrible job of making that point though.

 

[vcs]

Let's not pretend he is something else either with a couple of instances. When he and Kohli don't play together in T20s, his overall record suffers, esp SR.

As evidenced by his T20I record.

This is annoying having to downplay one of them to build up the other, I love them both.

 

[indiaholic]

What is PEWS day job anyways? Pretty sure that he can take all the statsguru jobs at cricinfo to himself.

 

[indiaholic]

As evidenced by his T20I record.

This is annoying having to downplay one of them to build up the other, I love them both.

Not sure that is evidence though. SA has Amla who can do a Kohli lite, no?

 

[Burner]

AB isn't AB. AB is sometimes terrible at t20s. There is enough time time in t20s to build your innings and there will always be. The problem with AB is that he plays his t20 cricket always believing that he doesn't have enough time while he does.

(Yes I am a little sour from the final)

 

[Zinzan]

As evidenced by his T20I record.

This is annoying having to downplay one of them to build up the other, I love them both.

I don't think it's downplaying either. I thought Kohli was a revelation in the IPL this year having previously thought he was possibly a little pedestrian in T20s to be one of the top 2-3, with ODIs being this bread and butter.


Also, the claim AB relies on Kohli can just as easily be switched around.

 

[vcs]

Not sure that is evidence though. SA has Amla who can do a Kohli lite, no?

Amla hasn't been a regular in their T20 side, has he? Not that it takes anything away from my point, either way.

A player as stunningly consistent and clutch as Kohli will always be valuable in T20s. He's just been unlucky he hasn't played in teams with decent bowling attacks, so he hasn't won much. Having said that, his IPL performance in previous years wasn't as amazing as it was this time, probably the likes of Raina and Rohit were more consistent in previous IPL editions.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Poor article imo. T20 is obviously a SR focussed game but making it the attribute that supercedes everything else by a long way is silly. It's why I hate that batting averages aren't even shown in t20s when a batsman comes out to bat.

 

[harsh.ag]

Also, the claim AB relies on Kohli can just as easily be switched around.

Completely agree. Hence how the article was beyond moronic in ignoring complex interactions.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Also, the claim AB relies on Kohli can just as easily be switched around.

It absolutely can't at all when you look at Kohli's performances in the t20 WC and Asia cup where he almost won both tournaments for us basically on his own.

Ftr, I don't think either of them 'rely' on each other