Virat Kohli batting in slow gear

Virat Kohli came into IPL 2012 in the form of his life. He was the only Indian to score a Test century in the series in Australia, and in his last 21 ODI innings he averaged 73.11 at a strike rate of 95.46. Add his numbers in the last two seasons of the IPL - 864 runs in 29 innings at 37.56 and a strike rate of 128.57 - and it wasn't unrealistic to expect him to be one of the key batsmen for Royal Challengers Bangalore, along with Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers.

The Kohli who's turned up during the IPL, though, seems a pale shadow of the batsman who thrilled everyone with his stunning batting exploits over the last six months: nine innings, 186 balls faced, 192 runs scored, average of 21.33, strike rate of 103.22. He's still the third-highest run-getter for Royal Challengers, but well behind Gayle and de Villiers, who both have 40-plus averages at strike rates of more than 150.

Kohli's strike rate is the third lowest in this IPL among batsmen who have scored at least 150 runs. The only ones who have done worse than him are Jacques Kallis and Sourav Ganguly. However, both Kallis and Ganguly have been involved in more low-scoring games, in which the overall run rate of batsmen have been relatively low. Kohli, on the other hand, has played most of his matches at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, where the pitch usually aids quick scoring. In the nine games that he has played (excluding the washout against Chennai Super Kings), the average strike rate of all batsmen has been 132.82; the corresponding numbers for Kallis and Ganguly are 113.55 and 120.87. Thus, if the strike rates in the matches involving the batsmen are factored in, then Kohli's strike rate is effectively the lowest among batsmen with 150-plus runs in IPL 2012: he scores at less than 78% of the average strike rate in the matches that he has played in. Even though Kallis and Ganguly have lower strike rates, their percentages are more than 84.