How Virat Kohli, the poster boy, lost colors on England tour

New Delhi: When Team India embarked on England tour, Virat Kohli – the poster boy in India, was the most trusted and talked about batsman in the new look and young Indian side. But alas, contrary to the expectations, he failed miserably. He used to be the main and biggest strength of the middle order but his failure in all four tests can cost India this series. Kohli's story on this tour has been quite similar to the Australian tour in 2011 where he looked in the zone to score big but couldn't manage until the Adelaide Test where he struck a spectacular century that gave his career a different turn and meaning. After that innings, Kohli evolved as a batsman and emerged as a new sensation in world cricket, but somehow his rising graph nosedived on this tour. Any batsman can fail or can go through the lean phase but whtas worrying about Kohli is his dismissal has become so predictable. Now the question is why is he not correcting his flaw in negotiating the out going deliveries…? By now he must have seen videos of his dismissals at least fifty time and must have been tutored by batting coach and other senior Indian cricketers touring as commentators. English bowlers have discovered his weak spot and challenged him with the out swing deliveries. His judgment of what to leave and what to play has gone awry. In the eight innings so far in the series he has been caught edging six times behind the stumps; 4 times at slips and 2 times to the keeper. All his dismissals have been similar to one another. He has been troubled by the pace of Anderson and Broad. He tried to dominate the bowlers right from the start and then eventually ended up playing an unnecessary shot. In the first innings of the third Test at The Ageas Bowl, James Anderson varied his length well on two successive deliveries. First one was short of length and shaping away; Kohli did well by letting it go. The next ball, Anderson pitched it further up but still a touch short and moving away; Kohli couldn't resist and poked at it, edging it straight to Alastair Cook in the slips. The way he is timing the ball is just not perfect, which means his problem area borders around lack of judgement. Kohli has looked comfortable when the ball is pitched up but not when the length is pulled back a bit. The same happened in fourth test as well. In both the innings he was dismissed by Anderson, getting and edge to the slips. In the first innings he tried to leave the ball but but it flicked the edge to England captain who stood at first slip. In second innings also, he tried to hit the ball going outside, but nicked to Ian Bell at first slip.Though he played decent in the third test with 39 and 28 in both innings respectively, but in the rest six innings he made only 41 runs. His total of 108 in 4 tests with an average of 13.50 in the series is even worse than that of Bhuvneshwar Kumar who scored 238 runs with an average of 34. He has two more innings left to end the test series on a happier note. In fifth test at Oval, when he comes out to bat, he needs to control his urge to go after balls outside the off stump. He must try to limit his shots on the on-side. After the fourth test, England are now leading the 5-match series by 2-1, which means they still has a fear of losing another series. But if Kohli gets back in his form, the tide might turn back in India's favour and the series could finish leveled at 2-2.