New Delhi: Virat Kohli Has made “more mistakes in one” IPL Compared to his entire 14-year international career, feels Virender Sehwag, who is looking at a “different version” of the former India Captain which is commonly used. Kohli, who hasn’t scored an international century in more than two-and-a-half years, is facing his worst slump, having scored 341 runs in 16 IPL games at a below-average average of 22.73 and two half-centuries. Actually, he opened the innings in most of the matches.
“It’s not the Virat Kohli we know. It is different from Virat Kohli playing this season. Otherwise, the number of mistakes he has made this season, he has not done in his entire career,” Sehwag told Cricbuzz. Sehwag, one of India’s greatest match-winners during his tenure, however sympathized with Kohli as he felt India’s No. 1 batsman got out in every way possible to try different tactics. “It can happen when you are not scoring runs. You try to look at different options to get out of a bad patch and it leads to dismissal in different ways. This season, Kohli has been dismissed in every possible way that one can think of,” the man who scored over 17,000 international runs across all formats.
In the second qualifier, Kohli chased down a quick, rising delivery from pacer Pramak Krishna, which was wide outside the off-stump, giving a simple catch to Rajasthan Royals captain Sanju Samson behind the stumps. “When you are out of form, you have a tendency to try to middle every delivery. A batsman thinks, if I can get the ball in the middle, I will get more confidence.
“Though Virat dropped a lot of deliveries in that first over (from Trent Boult), it happens when you are out of form. You chase the ball outside the off stump. You start following each of them. So even when you have bad luck, you won’t edge it, but that didn’t happen here,” explained the former opener. What caught Sehwag’s attention was his indecisive strike on the delivery.
“The delivery he got out for – there was pace and bounce. So he could have either left it or might have been working hard on it. Who knows, it may have flown over the keeper’s head but what he did was a simple catch practice. It was like he was giving catching drills like slip fielders during the net session,” he analyzed. Sehwag did not mince words when he said that Kohli disappointed millions of his fans as there is an expectation that stars will own the big stage.
“He has definitely let everyone down. We all expect that in a big game, the big player will perform, he not only disappointed himself but also his fans and RCB fans,” Sehwag said. In 2012, former keeper Parthiv Patel raised a fair point about Kohli not having cut shots in his repertoire, which comes in handy during lean patches at times.
“On a bouncy track, one needs to play the cut shot. But Virat never plays cut shots, it’s not his technique. So the ball that got him out, the same ball was bowled to Rajat Patidar who slashed hard and it went over the fielder’s head for four runs,” Parthiv said.
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