The only time he showed consistency (in any format) was during a tough home test series against Australia! All other times he has shown huge high and huge low (usually starts a tour with a century OR ends a tour with century like Bhaag Viru Bhaag has assessed).
Looking at all these developments it is imperative that these guys (at least batsmen) should never miss any home test series (even if it is against West Indies or Bangladesh) giving the excuse of rest or anything. Batting is a "form" skill (compared to bowling which is a "rhythm" skill where they can reach their best over a spell...) because no batsman gets a second chance after getting out in a given innings no matter how well they are playing/striking the ball (unless they get a luck/life). For e.g., Rahane even today looks beautiful when he is striking the ball... Not many people would have noticed that he is actually hitting lots of boundaries and quick cameos in recent test matches and then looks like a stupid when he gets out! Only the confidence of "form" (even if it comes from home matches) can drive a batsman to get out of the fear of getting "out" in tough conditions & grow their innings!
It has become a fashion to pick & choose the international games these days and this has led to drastic downfall of all these batsmen (including Kohli). Home games are a must and it will always help a batsman to gain their confidence & help improve their stats (yes, even if some people mock that he is a HTB or minnow-basher!) and that confidence should rub when they tour overseas...
Another reason is not playing any warm-up matches in any tour and not enough practice/preparation sessions.
Yes, IPL has indirectly or directly responsible for all these developments, but blaming IPL completely is also unfair because IPL has also helped in improving our resources, professionalism, fitness, bench-strength, pressure-handling, financial-security, etc which are also equally important and we are seeing the positive results due to that (vast improvement in our overall overseas test results, even though our batting looks weak!).
The remedy for this is either reducing the number of games played in IPL or bringing the same rotation of players policy as they do in international matches. Like lifting the foreign players limit from 4 to 6 OR including a new rule that each team should have at least 4 uncapped (not played any kind of international matches) local players in their team OR not allowing Top-Tier Indian International Players to play first 10 matches, they can join for the latter decisive matches & knockouts/playoffs! If carefully planned this won't affect the financial-output of the tournament and instead strengthens it further and makes it even more interesting/challenging!
But I am not sure if they will keep Money/Finance secondary and put Indian Cricketing Standards/Development as main priority! (Its not happening in any field/organization on earth including even ICC. How much has IPL really cared for cricket's improvement compared to eating money gained from cricket played by India!) So we have to cope with all these cons of IPL while accepting the pros it gives!
I think players themselves should take the initiative and skip IPL matches (I guess they get the base payments) giving the reason of prioritizing international matches. If one player does that, hopefully other players will also follow. In this way, they could have moved to England early to practice for WTC finals against NZ. This is much more easier (if the change happens at personal level!)
Rahul, Kohli, Pant... its important for them to not skip any home test games even though it may look insignificant/useless matches on the surface!
