Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli has no doubt in mind that his big-hitting opener Chris Gayle will overcome his current run of poor form very quickly and deliver with a bang when it will matter most in this season’s Indian Premier League.
The Caribbean batsman is arguably one of the most destructive top four in modern cricket along with Kohli, AB de Villiers and Shane Watson.
The RCB have snapped up some mammoth totals of 227 and 191 in their two opening matches of the 2016 IPL till now, the star-studded batting line-up was very hard to contain on a flat surface at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
While Kohli, De Villiers, and Watson all fired up, Gayle unexpectedly has scored just a single run in his two matches, which saw 14 total runs scored from his last five T20 appearances.
The powerful opener has really struggled for runs in the latter stages of the West Indies’ outstanding victory at the recently concluded ICC World T20, picking up scores of 4, 5 and 4 to end the tournament.
It eventually means he has now scored only 14 runs from 19 balls in his past five matches, including three boundaries.
But having started the World T20 with a match-winning century against England, which was his 17th hundred in an outstanding 20-over career, RCB Captain Virat Kohli is convinced that his opening partner will get back to his lethal best sooner rather than later.
“Well we got to 230 without him firing (against the Sunrisers Hyderabad last week) and then we almost got 200 without him firing today, so I don’t know what’s going to happen when he fires,” Kohli with a mysterious smile admitted after his team failed to defend such a huge total against Delhi Daredevils last night.
“Chris takes a lot of pride in playing for RCB and performing for us. He has been a standout performer for us.
“People expect a lot from him in every game in T20 cricket because he’s so good at it. He’s got 17 centuries and that’s no joke. Expectations are high and he wants to live up to them.
“I’m sure he’ll come good at some stage in the tournament. Maybe in the most important stage if not the first few games, when we need him the most and he’ll go out and get a hundred for us.
“I’m not too worried about his form. The other guys are stepping up nicely and that’s what this game is all about.
“When someone doesn’t do well, others have to go out there and grab the opportunity.”
Gayle’s amazing record of 17 centuries in 246 Twenty20 appearances is an outstanding 10 more than Brendon McCullum sitting in second place, who has seven T20 hundred from only 24 games less than the Jamaican big-hitter.
Gayle also bolsters with 55 fifties to his name, 11 more than any other player, and has thrashed an unbelievable 637 sixes in his career, an average of 2.6 per innings.
But while he is enduring a poor form with the willow, his three other partners of the destructive RCB top four has been enjoying an imperious form till now in IPL 2016.
Kohli (75 from 51 deliveries and 79 from 48), De Villiers (82 from 42 and 55 from 33) and Watson (19 from 8 and 33 from 19) have scored 343 runs between them of the RCB’s 418 runs scored, hitting 32 fours and 19 sixes in total.
“We obviously want everyone to score runs but that does not happen all the time,” Kohli further said.
“This is one advantage of having someone like Shane in the middle order along with AB and myself.
“Having four guys who are international players one after the other always helps because you can rely on those four players to tackle situations and turn the game around for you and that’s what we’ve done with the bat in this game and the last game.”
The Royal Challengers will next face defending champions Mumbai Indians at Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday.