Virat Kohli made 43 off 35 balls in the IPL final against Punjab Kings, a knock that divided opinion over the approach taken.
Put into bat first at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Kohli and Phil Salt came out to open for RCB for their first IPL final since 2016. Kohli, however, only really got into the game in the fourth over, when he glanced Kyle Jamieson for his first boundary off what was just the third ball he was facing. By then, Salt had played a cameo (16 off 9) and perished, and the No.3, Mayank Agarwal, had already faced seven deliveries for 10 runs.
Not getting enough strike
It became central the theme of Kohli's IPL final knock: not getting enough strike. The 35th delivery he faced - off which he was dismissed - was the 89th legal delivery faced by RCB, amounting to just under 40 per cent.
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Kohli's strike starvation was a combination of both good planning and execution by the Punjab Kings bowlers, and a lack of urgency on Kohli's part.
He faced only 10 balls in the first six overs, scoring 13 runs with the flick off Jamieson being the only boundary. Interestingly, only one of those 10 balls was a dot as he managed seven singles and a double inside the powerplay, making it the first occasion this season where he faced 10 or fewer balls inside the powerplay and hit just one boundary while not getting dismissed in the phase.
Perhaps the strategy was for Kohli to preserve his wicket as batters at the other end took charge in the powerplay. Salt and Agarwal combined to score 40 off 26 in the first six overs. But the end result of 55-1 felt slightly underwhelming.
Agarwal's immediate dismissal against Yuzvendra Chahal after the powerplay didn't help as Kohli went further into his knock-it-around mode. Rajat Patidar, who's known to be a slow starter, hit a four and six off his first seven deliveries, clearly broadcasting the team's plan to keep going hard from the non-Kohli end. Just as he seemed to be getting into groove, however, the RCB captain was dismissed as well, for 26 off 16.
By the end of the 11th over, RCB were 97-3, and Kohli had faced only 22 out of the 66 balls bowled, for 28 runs. The next two overs saw only one dot ball, but also only 14 runs scored with no boundaries.
While there was theoretical merit in the plan of Kohli playing anchor and others playing around him, at times it felt as if they were more committed to the plan than the situation at hand.
Also read: Virat Kohli, India's T20 World Cup final hero, was almost a villain
By the first 13 overs, Kohli had faced only three dots out of 29, but had only two boundaries and a whopping 21 singles to show. The commitment to what clearly looked like a pre-decided plan to keep the strike ticking meant that not enough boundary-hitting intent was shown. It also meant that Kohli managed to keep himself off strike for a major part of the innings, facing only 37 per cent of all balls bowled by the first 13 overs. Instead of dominating the final, he was almost watching it pass him by.
Perhaps the RCB think-tank realised this.
The first ball following the strategic time out after the 13th over, Livingstone danced down the track to hit a six off Chahal. What made clear the shift in strategy was Kohli's slog sweep for four off the third ball of the over. But it didn't last long. Kohli might have been playing himself into a shell, but the Punjab bowlers didn't make things easy for the former RCB and India captain as well.
62 per cent of balls Kohli faced off their seamers were short, mostly off-pace deliveries banged into the surface, not allowing him any the opportunity to get onto the front foot or to use any pace. Out of the eight runs he scored in the 'V' (all in singles), only three came off quicks.
Eventually, he was dismissed trying to force an Amzatullah Omarzai 122 kph bouncer in the 15th over, arguably the worst possible time for an anchoring opener whose knock has been based on the premise that they would accelerate in the death overs, to get out.
RCB made 59 off the last 5.1 overs after Kohli's dismissal to end with 190-9. In a way, it raised further questions of Kohli and RCB's approach at the start. The dismissal of the batter who was supposed to hold the innings together didn't have the catastrophic consequence that was expected. Should he, then, have gone harder, or at least tried to?
As is often the case with such "Schrödinger's knocks", a judgement will only be reached once the proverbial lid of the result is lifted.
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