It has been an almost unprecedented start to IPL 2020 for the Royal Challengers Bangalore, who have three wins from their first four matches and are in the top two on the points table. In some ways, it was also an unknown start to the tournament for captain Virat Kohli, who had scored a total of 18 runs in the first three games and grabbed 29 balls in doing so.
While the Royal Challengers continued their good form with an eight-wicket victory against the Rajasthan Royals on Saturday, Kohli came out of his routine to make the highest score of the match, with 72 strokes, not 53.
A smiling Kohli later said that he had told Jos Buttler, the Royals’ wicketkeeper, during his innings that he loved and hated the game, due to the contrasting fortunes it made you experience as a player.
“It’s a fun game, you know. It’s an amazing game,” Kohli said in the post-match presentation to Ian Bishop when asked about his form. “I was saying to Jos when he was hitting there, ‘I love this game and I hate it too.
“It’s something you need to understand as a player. When you play cricket so much, you feel like sometimes you are not in control of what you want to do. But more than that, you feel disappointed when the team is not doing well. But when the team He’s doing good, you feel like, ‘Okay, I have more room to figure out how I want to apply my type of hitting for the benefit of the team.’
Head coach Simon Katich said that while the support staff had never cared about Kohli’s form, his batting in the Super Over against the Mumbai Indians could have marked the change. Villiers and Kohli’s AB faced a hostile Jasprit Bumrah back then, and Kohli hit the winning runs for Royal Challengers with the last ball.
“From the way we’ve seen it, we don’t see Virat out of shape at all,” Katich said after the game. “We see him hitting the net, and we think he looked great in the first game. Unfortunately, he hit that. [he was out for 14 off 13 against the Sunrisers Hyderabad] and then got lost a couple of times. That can happen in the T20s.
“I think what helped was that he made us cross the line in that Super Over. Great shot to end the game there against Mumbai and it has continued from there. What we see on the net from training to training is someone who is super. He looked like he was timing the ball wonderfully and works so hard on his game that it was only a matter of time before he had runs in the middle. It was great to see him come out today, control that chase, which we know he does very well, and hopefully now that will kick-start the rest of your IPL. “
Although he was happy with how well his team had started, Kohli cautioned against loosening up, noting that it was very easy to fall behind in a tournament like the IPL.
“This tournament, we understand that you can get away from you very quickly,” he said. “We have experienced that in the past. When you start to lose initially, the games start to go by very quickly and suddenly you realize that you have been seven or eight games in the tournament and you have no points. And when you start well it is important to continue. with that momentum. So yes, we will seek to do that. Just follow the process that we have in place and continue to support us to go out and execute the plans that we have. “
‘This guy has great talent’ – Kohli in Devdutt Padikkal
Kohli’s hit against the Royals came in association with starter Devdutt Padikkal, who has reached three-fifty in his first four IPL games. Padikkal was 63 on 45, giving Kohli time to settle down. Kohli has worked closely with Padikkal since the team arrived in the UAE, with the Royal Challengers pairing a young man with an experienced hand and Kohli taking Padikkal under his wing.
“I saw him play and I told Simon [Katich]… I was like, ‘This guy has great talent. Because he has scope and has a great eye, a great balance. His head is very still, “Kohli said.” And a southpaw … it is very difficult for bowlers to keep throwing the same lines and lengths when a southpaw enters. And the way he hits, he’s very, very clean. . You don’t feel like he’s risking himself as such. That kind of feeling that you hardly have with hitters who get to this level, when they haven’t played that much.
“I kept talking to him about inning building. If he can hit a lot for the team, it will benefit us most of the time. He’s a smart guy, understands the game well and responds very well to comments.”
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