New Delhi: ICC Hall of Famer Ricky Ponting shared his thoughts on where Virat Kohli is at in his Test career following a further downturn in his form in India's Border-Gavaskar Trophy loss to Australia.
Once the linchpin of India's batting, Kohli suffered a tough time Down Under ending with just 190 runs at an average under 24, despite scoring an unbeaten century in the first Test in Perth.
Looking for potential solutions for the 36-year-old, cricketing great Ricky Ponting agreed he had much to give, despite struggles against spin at home and technical issues outside off-stump in Australia.
Speaking to host Sanjana Ganesan on The ICC Review, Ponting compared Kohli's struggles to his own towards the end of his career, where the former Australian captain averaged 39.48 in his last five years as a Test batter, down from a career average of 51.85.
"The challenge is, and I can see it with Virat now, you can see how much he wants it. He's trying so hard that actually makes batting harder. The harder you try sometimes with batting, the less success you're to have," Ponting told The ICC Review as quoted by the ICC official website.
"I started thinking more about not getting out rather than scoring runs. And that might sound strange, but that's what it was. I was trying to be so perfect, set the right example, play exactly the way my team needed me all the time," the former Australia skipper added.
Having gone through a similar experience, Ponting backed the natural style of play to come good at this stage of the career.
"But when I was playing my best, I didn't think about any of that. I just walked out and thought about scoring runs. If I got a half volley, I drove it. If I got a short ball, I pulled it. And I can just see a little bit of that with Virat now, where even the way that he's getting out, you can see he doesn't want to be playing at those balls. He's trying not to do it, but there's some mental block there that's making him feel for that one outside the off-stump," the World Cup-winning player said.
However, Ponting said Kohli would be of great use in the Indian dressing room as a senior voice who could provide guidance and support to younger players.
"I did play for maybe two years longer than I should have. But that wasn't anything to do with me. I continued to play on to try and help the younger group of players coming through, sort of integrate into international cricket and almost be like a coach and a senior figure around the team to help them through because Mike Hussey was retiring as well. I thought we're going to be left with not a lot of experienced guys, but guys like Smith, Warner, Lyon had all these young guys coming in at once," Ponting revealed.
Skipper Rohit Sharma and star batter Virat Kohli came under fire for an underwhelming Border-Gavaskar Trophy campaign and overall a very disappointing 2024/25 season of Test cricket. Sharma (31 runs in three matches and five innings at an average of 6.20) and Virat Kohli (190 runs in five matches and nine innings at an average of 23.75 with a century) lacked big time with the bat. Virat fell for the outside-off-stump trap throughout the series, most notably by pacer Scott Boland who dismissed him four times.
The ongoing 2024-25 season of Tests has been miserable for 'Ro-Ko' (Rohit and Kohli). While Rohit scored just 164 runs in eight matches and 15 innings at an average of 10.93 with best score of 52, Virat scored a shambolic 382 runs in 10 matches and 19 innings at an average of 22.87, with just a century and fifty each. (ANI)