Ranchi. Something extraordinary happened on the grounds of Ranchi on Sunday, 30 November. Virat Kohli, known for his controlled batting, running between the wickets and patient build-up, suddenly appeared in a new character. His innings itself started with two powerful sixes, something that Kohli rarely does in his opening overs, but this change has given rise to discussion whether Virat is changing his game? And is this change part of the preparations for the 2027 ODI World Cup?

Usually, after the early dismissal of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Kohli takes the responsibility of handling the innings, but this time he adopted an aggressive approach from the beginning. He challenged the South African pacers on both the backfoot and frontfoot and quickly changed his gears depending on the behavior of the pitch. This was the same style of Kohli which he has adopted on very few occasions, but has surprised the cricket world every time.

The question that makes this innings special is whether it was an aggressive knock played only according to the conditions? Or is Kohli now taking his ODI batting to the third phase, where experience and power come together? Ranchi ODI was only the third time in Kohli’s ODI career where he hit seven sixes. Earlier, he had done this against Sri Lanka in 2023 (eight sixes) and against Australia in 2013 (seven sixes). There is a pattern in all these innings, when Kohli plays his shots freely, he not only scores runs, he changes the story of the match.

Kohli’s shot-selection was very special in this innings. He played three different shots on balls of the same length. One shot was played at long off, the second shot was played at long on and the third shot was played at mid-wicket. This was the reason why South African bowlers failed to set the field. Kohli was not just scoring runs, he was teaching pacers and fielding plans in the classroom.

Recently, during the Australia tour, Rohit Sharma also changed his batting style. He had again moved away from his hit-or-miss aggressive style and played the role of a classical ODI anchor and now Kohli seemed to be going for the opposite, energy-initiated ODI model. Is this just a coincidence? Probably not. The Indian team is currently in a phase of change, where players like Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer and Tilak Verma are preparing for the future. In such a situation, Kohli knows that competition is increasing and change is necessary.