Virat Kohli finished with 466 runs from 15 matches for Royal Challengers Bangalore after they were eliminated in the playoffs. Still, his below-par strike rate of 121.35 was seen as a concern and was criticized by experts as the skipper struggled to get going especially in the middle overs, more often than not in the UAE.
Royal Challengers Bangalore head coach Simon Katich, however, defended Virat Kohli’s slow approach in the middle overs at IPL 2020, saying that it’s unfair to judge the talismanic skipper based on numbers alone and RCB’s middle-order failure resulted in Virat Kohli’s slow strike rate as he tried to build the innings rather than playing aggressively.
Virat Kohli’s Slow Strike Rate Defended By Coach Simon Katich
Virat Kohli finished as the second-highest run-getter for RCB at IPL 2020 with 466 runs from 15 matches averaging 42.36 which was only 7 runs behind young opener debutant Devdutt Padikkal who scored 473 runs averaging 31.53. However, Virat Kohli’s strike rate of 121.35 was below considering his high standards. The RCB captain often struggled to get going in the middle-overs as the likes of Moeen Ali and Aaron Finch failed with the bat as RCB had the lowest scoring rate among the 8 teams in the said period.
However, Simon Katich defended Virat Kohli, saying the RCB captain’s approach was a byproduct of the situation he found himself in batting at No. 3 with wickets falling around him, more often than not. Simon Katich pointed out that Virat Kohli was at his best when he hit an unbeaten 90 against Chennai Super Kings.
Still, it was not easy to walk in after the powerplay and build an innings, especially after the pitches slowed down in the UAE towards the later half of their campaign.
“Look, from the batting perspective, we did have consistent opening partnerships between Finch and Padikkal even though Finch not getting the volume of runs that he would have hoped for, we actually did get solid opening partnerships. That’s an area of concern we wanted to address,” Simon Katich said.
“We got that, as a by product of that, Virat came into bat after the powerplay which is never an easy time to start your innings, particularly in the UAE, particularly late in the tournament with the pitches getting slower. That was a challenge for him,” Katich told the press on Saturday.
AB De Villiers on the other hand had a strike rate of 158.74 and scored 454 runs in 15 matches averaging 45.4 while others like Aaron Finch failed scoring only 268 runs in 12 matches averaging a below par 22.33. No other batsman apart from the trio of Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli and AB De Villiers were in top 25 of leading run scorers which sums up their batting failure as a unit.
Virat Kohli’s Class Was Shown Against Chennai: Simon Katich
Virat Kohli scored an unbeaten 90 against Chennai Super Kings off 52 balls including 4 boundaries and as many sixes. In that match he had a strike rate of 173.07 which wasn’t met and was substandard in the other matches. RCB won 7 and lost 7 matches in group stage before qualifying for playoffs due to better run rate.
“We saw the class of Virat in the game against Chennai. But a number of times, the game situation did not help where he looked like he was well on top of the bowling but we would lose wickets at the crucial time and that would sort of slow his progress.”
“You can judge him purely by the numbers. There were a number of games where he looked right at ease but unfortunately we got stalled at times,” Simon Katich concluded.
Royal Challengers Bangalore’s quest to win their maiden IPL title came to an end as they were handed a six-wicket defeat by SunRisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator at Abu Dhabi on Friday. RCB were clearly struggling as they lost their last 5 matches before crashing out of the competition in the UAE.