‘The King is Dead’ – Simon Katich’s Brutal Statement On Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli has been one of the finest batter in world cricket right now. He has played a lot of match-winning innings for his team in his career. But, his current form hasn’t been great, particularly in the longest format of the game. Although he made a century in the first test of the BGT 2024-25, he hasn’t made a huge impact with the bat in the series. Now, during the 4^th BGT 2024-25 match, Australia’s former cricketer Simon Katich has made a huge statement on Virat Kohli. While targeting Virat Kohli, he said – ‘The king is dead.’

Kohli’s Form – A Concern for Team India

Before coming into this series, there were a lot of expectations by the Indian team fans from their senior star batters, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. If India wanted to win the BGT 2024-25, these two needed to perform. But both the batters haven’t made a huge impact in the series. Rohit Sharma has a super-flop show in the series, only managed to score 31 runs in 5 innings. If we particularly talk about Virat Kohli, he also doesn’t have a huge impact in the series.

Other than a hundred in the 2^nd inning of the Perth test, he struggled to play big innings. The Perth test hundred also came when the team was already in a good position. According to the standard Virat Kohli has set for himself, we expect him to come good in a situation where the team is down. He fails to make an impact in a tense situation.

In 7 innings of 4 tests, he scored 167 runs with an average of 27.83 and a strike rate of 53.02.

Virat Kohli & An obsession to play Outside Off-Stump Balls

There is an old saying that ‘You live by the sword, you die by the sword.’ At one stage, playing outside off-stump balls and playing a cover drive was a strength for Virat Kohli. But now, every opposition came up with a plan of getting him out in the outside off-stump channel.

Virat Kohli has made the same mistake again and again for a while now. The opposition fast-bowlers bowled him in the channel of uncertainty, sometimes at the wider of the crease where the ball came back with the angle and hold its line outside off-stump. They bowled him either on the off-stump or outside off-stump and he chased down the ball, nicks off the bat and a wicketkeeper or a slip fielder does the rest.

Sanjay Manjrekar also pointed out Kohli’s persistent struggle against outside off-stump balls. A few other ex-cricketers and experts also talked about Virat’s vulnerability against the wide off-stump balls.

‘The King is Dead’ – Simon Katich’s Brutal Statement on Virat Kohli

As we said earlier, Kohli’s struggle against a particular ball is continued in the BGT 2024-25. When India was chasing 340 runs in the 4^th inning of the MCG test, Virat Kohli got out to Mitchell Starc, chasing the wide outside off-stump delivery angling away. He nicks the ball and Usman Khawaja, who was standing at the 1^st slip took the catch. He only managed to score 5 runs off 29 balls.

Simon Katich, who was on-air at that time made a huge statement, pointing out the form of Virat Kohli. He said ‘The King is Dead’. He also said Jasprit Bumrah is the new king. Katich said it was a crucial inning for Virat but hasn’t done much.

“The King is dead. He trudges off, King Bumrah has taken the mantle now. Kohli looks dejected with himself. That was a big knock for him but he has come up short. India reeling on 33 for 3 as we head into lunch on Day 5 here. Australia will be very happy with the situation they find themselves in after the break.” – Simon Katich said on-air.

Same Pattern to get Virat out in the series

Virat Kohli has played 7 innings in the BGT 2024-25 so far. He remained not out in the 2^nd inning of the 1^st test. Other than that, he got out 6 times in the series in the same manner. He got out chasing off-stump/outside off-stump deliveries in this series.

Virat tried hard in the 1^st inning of the MCG test. He was leaving balls outside off-stumps and applied himself well till 86 balls. There was a mix-up between him and Yashasvi Jaiswal which cost the wicket of a left-hander. Maybe, the situation caught Virat and he nicks one ball outside off-stump off Scott Boland. He scored 36 runs off 86 balls, but couldn’t go big again.

Conclusion

So this is what Simon Katich has to say about Virat Kohli. Maybe because Virat has set the bar high for himself, Katich said those words for the star Indian batter. But, there is an uncertainty over Rohit and Virat’s future in tests. Rohit might not play any more test cricket after the Sydney test. Virat Kohli has to look at what is ahead of him in the next WTC (World Test Championship) cycle. Maybe we can see Virat a bit more than Rohit in tests.

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