IND vs AUS: Failure at his beloved Adelaide Oval shows how time is catching up with Virat Kohli

Time is catching up with Virat Kohli and Australia form is proof of that. (AP Photo)

IND vs AUS: Before this tour of Australia began, Virat Kohli had played 29 ODIs in Australia, and scored five centuries while averaging 51. Two of those centuries had come at the Adelaide Oval, a venue where his tally of 975 runs from 17 innings across the three formats was a record for any visiting batsman. Though he had been out for nought 16 times in 290 innings, not one of those instances had come in Australia.

Now, over the space of five days in Perth and Adelaide, Kohli has been dismissed for back-to-back ducks for the first time in his ODI career. He lasted eight balls at the Optus Stadium, and half as many at the venue where Sir Don Bradman once played and which was once his favourite overseas stomping ground.

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As soon as Xavier Bartlett nipped one back off the seam and it thudded into the pad, Kohli’s eyes checked where he was on the crease. The off-stump guard he now favours to try and prevent the outside edges to the keeper or slips also makes him a candidate for leg before, and though he had a chat with Rohit Sharma at the non-striker’s end, Kohli didn’t even bother to review the decision.

Both the pitches so far have offered early movement for the quicks and there have been no blazing Power plays. Rohit Sharma rode his luck to a doughty half-century. Kohli couldn’t even get his eye in. He has one more innings this series, in Sydney on Saturday. Fail there, and the murmurs about his form will become a crescendo.

There are echoes here of two other legendary careers, batsman Kohli is most often compared to. Sir Vivian Richards made a magisterial 181 not out in the 1987 World Cup, his last, and averaged nearly 50 that year. In the next two years, his averages were 26.75 and 32.8. In his last 10 innings, across 1990 and 1991, he made 279 runs at a strike-rate under 76. Fading eyesight, slowing reflexes and Father Time had combined to make him a mere mortal.

Sachin Tendulkar, who succeeded him as the greatest ODI batsman, scored two ridiculously good centuries – against England and South Africa – in the 2011 World Cup. In 2012, his last year in ODIs, he averaged 31.5 with a strike-rate of 81.39. The lone century, the 100th in international cricket, was memorable only for statistical reasons.

It was only seven months ago that Kohli’s 84 helped India win a Champions Trophy semifinal against Australia. But as Richards, Tendulkar and other legends found out, time and tide wait for no man. For Kohli too, there seems little sand left at the top of the timer.