Former Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper, Virat Kohli gave a witty reply on air for his slow ‘strike rate’ question, after former New Zealand cricketer, Simon Doull, lashed out at the ace Indian batter for prioritising “personal milestone”. Kohli was interviewed on Friday by ex-Indian cricketer Robin Uthappa on Jio Cinema, where Uthappa asked him about the ‘strike rate’ debate.
RCB in three games it played this season has won one and lost two, whereas, in the last clash, they lost the close battle owing to the last ball finish against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG).
Virat Kohli thinks those who question his ‘strike rate’ has not been in a situation-
“Yeah for sure (important anchor role). I completely agree with that, There are many people who because they have not been in that situation themselves, they look at the game differently,” the Ex- RCB skipper said.
Whereas in RCB’s last game, openers Kohli and Faf du Plessis together added over 90+ runs. The former Indian skipper scored 61 (44). He Kohli batted aggressively in the powerplay to score 42 runs but after the end of 6 overs, he slowed down, which was pointed by Doull as prioritising a personal ‘milestone’ as the 34-year-old took 10 balls to reach the 50-run mark.
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“Suddenly when the powerplay is done, they will be like ‘oh, they have started rotating the strike’. When you haven’t lost a wicket in the powerplay, usually the best player comes on to bowl, you are trying to figure out what to do against him in the first two overs, so that you can get big ones in the last two overs of that guy and then rest of the innings becomes much easier,” he further added.
Earlier, Doull was commentating during the Pakistan Super League (PSL) 2023, in that league, he was very vocal about Pakistan’s skipper Babar Azam’s slow strike rate. Doull pointed out the Pakistani skipper’s slower strike rate in his century innings, so this debate is not new for the former Kiwi cricketer.
“Kohli started off like a train. He was going hammer and tongs as he was playing a lot of shots. From 42 to 50, he took 10 balls. Concerned about a milestone. I don’t think there’s room for that in this game anymore. Just got to keep going, especially with wickets in hand at that stage. You got to keep going,” said the Kiwi commentator on Kohli’s innings against LSG.
During the RCB vs LSG clash, the top three fired for the Bengaluru-based side, as du Plessis managed to score 79 (46), with Kohli’s and Glenn Maxwell’s quick-fire 59 (29) helping RCB to post 212/2 after the end of 20 overs.
However, the LSG chased down the target owing to the final ball thriller after Marcus Stoinis 65 (30) and Nicholas Pooran 62 (19) went out all guns blazing. Eventually, Ravi Bishnoi and Avesh Khan completed one run after wicket-keeper, Dinesh Karthik was not able to grab the ball properly.
On April 15, RCB will take on Delhi Capitals (DC) at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru and in the evening game LSG will face PBKS at Ekana Stadium in Lucknow.