One of the major concerns for the Indian cricket team in the recent past has been the recurring dismissals of ace batter Virat Kohli.
As the team prepares to regain the Champions Trophy after 12 years, the dismissal of Virat in the same manner time and again due to an open-faced bat has left everyone worried and frustrated, including legendary Sunil Gavaskar.
“It is to a great extent due to the fact that the bat face opens up, the same thing happens when he’s playing against the quicks in Australia,” Gavaskar told India Today.
In the opening game of the Champions Trophy 2025 against Bangladesh, Kohli got out to wrist-spinner Rishad Hossain while he was caught by Soumya Sarkar at the backward point trying to cut the ball. This marks the sixth consecutive time Kohli has been dismissed by spin in ODIs, as he had struggled against England’s leg-spinner Adil Rashid too in the recent home series.
“The bat face is opening up, looking to play through the covers, opening the face of the bat, that gets him into trouble. So that is something that he’s got to watch out for,” Gavaskar explained. “A couple of times before he got out, he reached for Rishad, the ball turned, the bat face opened, and luckily the bat face opened, and so there was no nick. So that is something that he’ll have to tighten up on now.”
Kohli scored a fifty in the last ODI against England before the Champions Trophy but got out for a sluggish 22 against Bangladesh.
“If you’re getting out to the same kind of bowling, then you know, there is a bit of concern,” Gavaskar said.
Kohli, who scored 765 runs in 11 matches during the 2023 ODI World Cup, has struggled to replicate that form this year, managing only 137 runs in six innings at an average of 22.83, with just one half-century. In Tests since 2024, he has scored only 440 runs in 11 matches.