Virat Kohli’s childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma feels that the former India The captain has to play his natural game to get his momentum back. Kohli is going through a lean patch as his last international century came in 2019. The batting maestro has scored fifties at regular intervals during this phase, but he has not been able to convert it into a three-figure score.
Former captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore also performed tremendously IPL This season he scored 341 runs in 16 innings which included two half-centuries.
Rajkumar admitted that it has been a long time since Kohli scored a century but he is hopeful that the drought will end soon.
“Currently it is necessary for Virat to play his natural game and score big, which he has been looking for for a long time. I sincerely hope that he will do so soon as it has been a long time,” Rajkumar told India News.
The 57-year-old, who has worked closely with Kohli during his childhood days, admitted that the batting maestro’s conversion rate has fallen badly over the years.
“It is not often seen in Virat’s entire career that he has such a long lean patch, in terms of triple figures, he has certainly scored runs, but his conversion rate was exceptional earlier, once he was 30-35 runs would reach. Everyone believed that he would score big, definitely score a century but it hasn’t happened recently,” he said.
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Kohli will play next year in the postponed fifth Test of the series against England which was played last year when he himself was the captain of the team.
Rajkumar spoke about the on-field rivalry between Kohli and former England captain Joe Root for scoring more runs than each other. The 57-year-old said that players think about rivalry in their spare time but they should forget it as soon as they hit the ground.
“Both are excellent players. A healthy rivalry is always in the back of the mind, that he has come close to you or has overtaken you, or that you are close to the other person’s record. You definitely think about it sitting in a hotel or dressing room.”
“You forget this rivalry when you go over the boundary line, then you just wait for the next ball and you have to see how your runs are scored. Which route or anyone else doesn’t come to your mind.