Has Alastair Cook's England figured out Virat Kohli?

For much of the day, the joke was on Virat Kohli and his now official (?) girlfriend Anushka Sharma. The two had been spotted together just outside the Indian team’s hotel in London.

According to the UK Mirror, the two appeared casual as they stepped out of the team hotel on Wednesday. “The two have been spending a lot of time together and look really happy in each other’s company,” said the source.

That was all the invitation social media needed to go after the two of them. From the bawdy to the genuinely funny – there was no end to the jokes.

Then it got worse. And perhaps a little ugly as well.

Kohli misjudged an incoming delivery, shouldered arms and was clean bowled. It was the first ball he was facing and he was gone for a golden duck. It left India tottering at 118-3 and not for the first time in the series, the lower order would need to do more than their fair share of batting.

Kohli has played six innings’ on this tour (two in tour games and four in the two Tests) and he has managed to score just 99 runs at an average of 16.50. Take the tour matches away and his average (for just the Tests) drops to a paltry 8.50.

Virat Kohli on this tour: 29 (tour game) 36 (tour game) 1 & 8 (Trent Bridge Test) 25 & 0 (Lord’s Test) TOTAL 99 runs (avg 16.50)

Now, such failure is bound to hit any team hard. But when it happens to one of your team’s most experienced batsman it is a cause of worry. Ordinarily, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and the Indian team management could have just said that Kohli is class act and sooner rather than later, he will find his feet against this England attack.

But here is the really worrisome bit. Kohli’s career average against England isn’t very impressive either: 11 innings, 222 runs, top score of 103, avg of 22.20.

And if you look at his dismissals then other than two lbw decisions, all the others have been on the off-side – caught at mid-off, caught in the covers, caught in the slips (twice), caught behind (thrice), bowled (twice). So there is obviously an area that they have managed to single out. Of course, then again – these are areas that almost all top order batsmen will get dismissed in but the fact that they are managing to get Kohli cheaply over and over again is a crushing blow for India’s chances.

Alongwith Shikhar Dhawan, Kohli is the only other batsmen who can force the pace and with him not firing India’s run-rate never really gets to threatening levels. So even though, England don’t have great depth in their bowling attack, they are somehow managing to keep the Indian batsmen at check.

Just before the start of the England tour, Kohli had told BCCI.tv: “Initially, you try to prove it to the critics that you’re good enough to play at this level. Now I don’t feel the need to prove anything to people. It’s not that I believe that I have achieved it all but because I’ve realized that it is not important to prove anything to others. It’s (more) important what I think of my performances and what I expect from myself.”

Given how driven Kohli is, he is unlikely to be dealing with this loss of form very well. The criticism of his love life won’t be helping too much either which is why it is probably time to buckle down and concentrate solely on cricket.

We all know how dangerous Kohli can be at his best – over the last three years, he has a Test average of 46.63 with centuries against every Test opponent he has played against. In ODI cricket, he has piled on the runs at such a rate that many feel he might even break Sachin’s records.

Ian Chappell in a recent column wrote that India should had over their Test captaincy to Kohli – because Dhoni simply isn’t good enough. But now, against England… in a five-Test series… when India need him most. He has elected to go missing.

And if that doesn’t hurt then nothing will. India need Kohli to get back in the game quickly; they need him to find some spark but most of all they need him to find some runs before the burden becomes too much to bear for the others.