Virat Kohli’s IPL failure story: Why multiple unjust dismissals often hurt him

Prince Yadav celebrates after taking the wicket of Virat Kohli. (IPL Photo)

RCB superstar Virat Kohli was stunned after being cleared by Lucknow Super Giants pacer Prince Yadav for two at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow on Thursday night. This was Kohli’s first duck in the IPL in 1110 days and the 11th duck in the tournament in his storied T20 career.The bowling itself has quickly become one of the biggest talking points of IPL 2026. Prince bowled a fast ball with a speed of 140.4 kmph, which plowed through Kohli’s defense and crashed outside the stumps. Kohli stood there in disbelief as the young pacer burst into celebrations.

Some fans and experts have even dubbed it a “tournament ball.”For a batsman who dominated the IPL for nearly two decades and scored over 9,000 runs, dismissing Kohli for a duck remains one of the rarest feats in franchise cricket.

Kohli’s rare duck Pulse light history

Kohli was last dismissed in the IPL in April 2023 when Rajasthan Royals pacer Trent Boult trapped him off the first ball.Since making his IPL debut in 2008, Kohli has played 277 games and scored 9040 runs, including 8 centuries and 66 fifties, at an average of 39.82 and a strike rate of 133.92.In the 269 IPL innings he played, Kohli was dismissed for ducks just 11 times – just 4.09% of his innings.What makes this record even more remarkable is the distribution of those ducks over the course of his career. Six of the 11 ducks came in two tough seasons, 2014 and 2022, where Kohli was dismissed three times each.This leaves only 5 ducks in the remaining 17 IPL seasons.These isolated dismissals came in 2008 against Mumbai Indians, 2016 against Gujarat Lions, 2017 against Kolkata Knight Riders, 2023 against Rajasthan Royals and now in 2026 against Lucknow Supergiants.Virat Kohli’s IPL duck:

Multiple ducks and their impact on Kohli’s seasonInterestingly, Kohli’s season of multiple duck strikes also coincided with a noticeable dip in his overall numbers.In 2014, Kohli registered ducks against Mumbai Indians, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kings XI Punjab. At the end of the season, he scored only 359 runs in 14 innings at an average of 27.61, a strike rate of 122.10, and only 2 50s.Next comes the difficult 2022 season.That year, Kohli endured one of the toughest phases of his IPL career, again recording three ducks – against LSG and twice against SRH. His struggles were fully reflected in his final figures as he scored just 341 runs in 16 innings at an average of 22.73 and a strike rate of 115.98.Statistically, this remains one of Kohli’s worst IPL seasons.Kohli’s duck in the chaseKohli’s latest duck also comes with another surprising statistic.The RCB icon is widely regarded as one of the greatest chasers in cricket history, but he completed only his sixth IPL duck in his second bat. That number seems a bit inflated as all three of his ducks in the 2014 season came in the chase. Barring that unusual phase, Kohli rarely failed when batting second. More notably, it was his first Chase win since April 2017, ending a gap of more than nine years.Despite the setback, Kohli’s IPL 2026 campaign is still on track. He has amassed 379 points in 10 games, and after eclipsing that mark in each of the past three editions, he looks primed for another 600-point-plus season.Virat Kohli’s IPL duck chase: