Sri Lanka vs India: Kohli and the art of mastering the sweep shot

When Virat Kohli is hitting those cover drives, the silken flicks and powerful pulls, he is a sight to behold. Hardly have we seen him play unconventional shots that have now become famous in this era of T20 cricket. But the one shot missing from his repertoire is the sweep. Now with the Sri Lanka series round the corner, the India Test captain is looking to master the sweep shot. Having received a much-needed break, Kohli wasn’t just resting. He went back to his childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma to work on his sweep shot. [caption id=“attachment_2373604” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File picture of Virat Kohli. PTI[/caption] “His batting is technically very clean but he never played the sweep shot,” Mr. Sharma told The Times Of India, “But now he is making a conscious effort to sweep and he feels he needs to master that as it will help him dominate the spinners even better.” Mr. Sharma said that Kohli had asked for dry and rough pitches and practiced the sweep shot for two hours everyday against the spinners. Kohli, however, has had mixed outputs with the shot. Earlier during the England tour last year, he had all-sweep net sessions but still got undone by Moeen Ali. The first real signs of him employing the sweep shot came in the Australia series where he got the best of Nathan Lyon at Adelaide. He went on to hit centuries in both the innings. However, he still has problems playing that shot. In the World Cup, Kohli was bowled round the legs trying to employ the sweep off Zimbabwe’s part-time spinner Sikandar Raza. And lately against Bangladesh, he missed his slog sweep completely and was cleaned up by Shakib Al Hasan. Kohli has been going through a tough time of late with a string of low scores. He opted to play for India A against Australia A in order to gain match practice before the start of the Sri Lanka series. He, however, could garner just 16 runs in the first innings in the ongoing Test before being dismissed by a spinner - Ashton Agar. The second innings was better, but he was bowled after making 45- yet again off a spinner, Stephen O’Keefe. It may be noted that way back in 1998, Sachin Tendulkar mastered the art of sweeps and slog sweeps in order to be ready for the Shane Warne challenge. He got ace leg spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan to bowl to him from round the wicket in the rough outside the leg stump in the nets. Later, Tendulkar went on to dominate Warne with his powerful slog sweeps. Similarly, we have seen Kohli struggle in the outside-off channel in England but after coming back from the tour, he worked hard on his technique and sought Tendulkar’s help. He then went on to hit four centuries in Australia at an average of 106.5. Of late we have seen numerous batsmen employ the sweep shot to unsettle the spinners. With the Sri Lanka pitches aiding the spin bowlers, it is not a surprise to see Kohli work on his sweeping technique. But his coach Sharma warns that Kohli hasn’t developed the sweep shot completely and that he would do well to be cautious playing it in the near future.