With more and more innings of significant deliveries in losing causes, fans are wondering whether Virat Kohli is even a good fit for a T20 batsman when batting first.
Virat Kohli’s latest IPL century went in vain as Rajasthan Royals chased down the target of 184 runs with 5 balls to spare. RR had effectively sealed the game much ago through an outstanding partnership of 148 (86) by Sanju Samson and Jos Buttler after Jaiswal’s duck in the first over.
Earlier, Kohli scored a century off 67 balls – which is the joint-slowest century in IPL history, tagging along with Manish Pandey’s 67-ball ton back in 2009. Even though RCB lost only three wickets, they could manage to post a total of 183 with Kohli batting through the innings, scoring 113* off 72 balls, maintaining a strike rate of 156.
However, Jos Buttler reached his ton in 58 balls, and finished with a strike rate of 172, thus overpowering Kohli’s century, and taking to their fourth win in four matches this season.
Mindset of Virat Kohl in T20 cricket is outdated
This led to calls from even the most ardent supporters of Virat Kohli to question his approach and template in T20 cricket when batting first. Fans feel Kohli’s template of batting in the shortest format is archaic and the batter is yet to come to terms with the demands of modern T20 cricket.
One fan tweeted: “Virat Kohli mindset in T20 cricket is so outdated . Proper T20 players if they hit 1 boundary or six in an over , they try to hit 2 more in the over to make it a big over while Virat takes a single . T20 cricket has moved on and it’s high time Virat also moves on from this format.
RCB captain Faf du Plessis said, “I think we found the wicket tricky in the first innings. I thought 190 was a good score, think we could have added 10-15 runs max. Their spinners bowled well (in the middle overs), good decision by them to bowl first. With the dew batting got easier. Virat was playing well at the back end, with someone like Green coming in, you want to maximise those last overs. We tried to squeeze as hard as we can, but it was tricky to hit against the spinners. It was easier to hit the seamers. The pitch definitely got better, you could feel it, the ball was skidding along nicely.”
Also Read: Indians Hit Back At Pakistani Pacer For Trolling Virat Kohli For Slowest IPL Century
