Should Virat Kohli be sent down the T20 batting order?

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When faced with a loss, cricket teams often focus attention on certain quarters to deflect blame from others. This includes questioning the batters, even when bowlers have not been able to bowl the opponent teams out twice recently, and doubting runners with low runs, while others score a low run rate that compromise the entire team’s performance.

In this context, Virat Kohli’s current scoring rate for a total of 4008 runs in T20Is is 137.96. However, the balls faced per innings to reach this rate is 27.1, which gives rise to an average of 37.5 runs.The next two players in India’s scoring table are Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul who score an average of 27.5 and 33.3 runs off 19.8 and 23.9 balls, which shows that they can score runs faster than Kohli. In fact, Kohli scores slower by 5.7%, 5.2% and 27% compared to Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav.

Analysing the average score of each player, on a per-ball basis, also shows that Kohli is surpassed by other players as they attempt more boundaries than he does, with Kohli simply scoring a higher number of total runs, due to having played a larger number of balls. Hence, Kohli’s contribution to the total number of runs remains unchallenged.

However, it may be argued that in the world of T20 it is of paramount importance to score runs fast, due to the shortened nature of the format. With a total of 120 balls and 10 wickets to spare, a team can afford at least 12 balls per wicket, compared to 30 balls for each wicket in ODIs and 50 in Tests. Hence T20 performances of players can be viewed to be falling in several categories. This includes the failures - those who have been unable to survive 12 balls, and have scored less than the expected runs from the balls the player has played. If the player has scored more runs than expected, then it can be considered a cameo.

The successful players are then those who last for longer than 12 balls, and score higher than expected, while under par performers score lower than expected. In this context, Virat Kohli has scored under par in 48.55 of his T20 matches, compared to the 32.4 % of both Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul.

As discussions circulate about revamping India’s cricket squads, and constituting separate teams for each format, with separate coaches, it may be useful to consider if Kohli needs to be moved lower down the batting order.