Top 5: Minor weaknesses in the techniques of some modern day batsmen

#5 Virat Kohli and hard hands outside off

Kohli also has an area of concern

Virat Kohli, the ODI giant, the Indian Test team captain, the run machine. Sure, he is all of these. But the tour of England in 2014 exposed a minor weakness in his batting.

Kohli tends to go hard at balls on a length in the fourth or fifth stump line. In 6 out of 10 innings in that series, Kohli was out nicking deliveries in the corridor outside off stump.

Kohli's tendency to play in the 'V' region with a full face is perfect textbook stuff. But for short of length balls, on bouncy wickets, with movement off the deck, it easily induces an edge as the master, James Anderson, proved multiple times.

In reality, the weakness was found out in the ODI series in January 2014 in New Zealand when pace bowler Hamish Bennett had him impatient with that line. The drought of boundaries finally got to him and he nicked off-a pattern, familiar right through that ODI series.

Though Kohli has worked on the weakness and tends to mostly leave balls in that line nowadays, bowlers are well aware of this glaring issue. This tendency holds him in poor light in Test matches abroad, where that immaculate line and length is all you get.