Virat Kohli has now gone more than 50 international innings without a century and has managed to score only 124 runs in five innings in the ongoing five-match Test series against England.
The Indian captain has got out in a similar manner in all five innings, trying to play the ball outside off-stump and edging it to the wicketkeeper or the slip cordon.
Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar feels that Kohli will end up having a disastrous tour like that of 2014 when he got out in a similar way.
"Virat currently is grappling with his issue outside off, 2014 is coming back to haunt Virat and if he does not leave balls as he did in 2018, he is likely to be troubled the whole series. Or, he could not be so obsessed with getting onto the front foot no matter what and make his life easier and the bowlers’ more difficult. His front foot play is just making him graft more and even average bowlers who bowl around good length are making the great batter scavenge for runs," Manjrekar wrote in his column for Hindustan Times.
Read also: ENG v IND 2021: Ravindra Jadeja gifts his Test jersey to Michael Vaughan for charity
Kohli personally described the 2014 England series as the worst phase of his career. He kept edging balls outside off-stump and has repeated the same mistakes in 2021.
Manjrekar added that Kohli’s decision to bat first was wrong as the pitch was hard to bat on and India was bowled out for just 78 runs.
"At the toss on Day 1, Joe Root said something that caught my attention. After Virat Kohli elected to bat, Root was asked what he would have done had he won the toss. Root said, 'Interesting question because I was not sure, the pitch looks tacky," he penned.
"Okay, so there is definitely going to be some life in this pitch, to begin with, and with overcast conditions prevailing, India had taken a bold decision to bat first. I thought Virat took this decision because he had won the last Test convincingly, and almost won the first, so he was riding a wave of confidence and wanted to start on a positive note,” he concluded.
