For the second time in succession, a Virat Kohli century came in a losing cause for Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Before Saturday night’s unbeaten 113 against Rajasthan Royals, the former skipper’s previous three-figure knock was on 21 May 2023, against Gujarat Titans in Bengaluru. RCB needed to win the competition’s final league fixture to sneak into the playoffs, and Kohli played his part with an unbeaten 101, hauling his side to 197 for five.

Shubman Gill trumped Kohli with an undefeated 104, hitting a six off the first ball of the last over to take his side through to a commanding six-wicket win. History repeated itself in Jaipur when another right-handed opener, Jos Buttler, also smashed the first ball of the final over for six to reach his hundred and muscle his team to another six-wicket romp, consigning Kohli's franchise to a crippling fourth defeat from five outings.

It's not often that the leading scorer of the competition comes under scrutiny for scoring a hundred, but Kohli is a victim of his own lofty standards, which his why his 113 not out has been a major talking point. The IPL’s highest run-maker took 67 deliveries to reach his hundred – the slowest on Indian soil and the joint slowest ever, alongside Manish Pandey in South Africa in 2009, also for RCB – but even though he finished with a strike-rate of 156.94 and the next highest scorer in RCB’s 183 for three was Faf du Plessis (44 off 33, strike-rate 133.33), tongues have started to wag over the Kohli approach.

Five of Kohli’s first six IPL tons came in RCB victories, but tellingly enough, on the five occasions when Kohli has faced 59 deliveries or more whilst remaining unbeaten – his scores have ranged from 83 to 113 -- RCB have ended up on the losing side. Whether that is a reflection of the lack of ‘intent’ from Kohli or the lack of support from the rest of the batting group depends on perception.

Let’s return to the Jaipur debacle. By all accounts, 183 for three from 20 overs is a baffling conundrum. Clearly, RCB had plenty of batting resources at their disposal, including the in-form Dinesh Karthik who was cooling his heels in the dugout. They had got off to a productive start for the first time in the competition, Kohli and du Plessis adding 125 for the first wicket. They took 84 deliveries in doing so, however, which meant the batters to follow had to get cracking from the get-go.

It didn’t help RCB’s cause any that Glenn Maxwell lasted just three deliveries, playing an outrageously poor stroke against Nandre Burger, exposing all his stumps and being bowled for one. Maxwell has had an IPL to forget – his tally for the season stands at 32 after five innings – as has his fellow Aussie Cameron Green, whose unbeaten six-ball five took his count for IPL 2024 to 68, also from five digs. Kohli has ploughed a lone furrow for his franchise with a season-high 316 runs; of the rest, du Plessis alone has more than 90 runs. This, as much as anything else, should put Kohli’s performances, and his dilemma, in perspective.

At the break between innings, Kohli insisted that the surface wasn’t as flat as it appeared from the outside. “I knew I couldn’t get over-aggressive, just that I had to keep the bowlers guessing,” he added. It made sense at the time; had Kohli gotten too adventurous too soon, it’s likely that RCB’s misfiring batting unit might have sold itself short in seeking to overreach. 67 deliveries to get to 100 in a T20 game might look singularly unedifying, but an end-of-innings strike-rate in excess of 156 is hardly trifling, especially given that there was very little meaningful support for Kohli once du Plessis was dismissed with six overs remaining.

Buttler’s riposte was different because he knew exactly how many his team needed, and he received excellent support from Sanju Samson during a second-wicket stand of 148. Where du Plessis had scratched around for 44, his RR counterpart blitzed to 69 off 42 (strike-rate 164.28). Of course, it bears keeping in mind that RR boast a far more potent, versatile and experienced bowling attack – Trent Boult, Avesh Khan, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal – than RCB, reinforcing the magnitude of the challenge that confronted a Kohli surrounded by underachieving batting colleagues.

It's one of the great ironies that the premier batter of his generation is under the scanner after an unprecedented eighth IPL ton, but the 20-over game, especially, is singularly unsparing, a harsh reality Kohli is being exposed to all over again.

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