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Virat Kohli has been in fine form in IPL 2024. (AP Photo)
Virat Kohli took a dig at the critics of his strike-rate recently after playing a match-winning knock for Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
Virat Kohli might be in the midst of another productive IPL season but that hasn’t stopped him from being at the receiving end of criticism regarding his strike-rate and claims over weakness against spin bowling. With the top-order batters of other franchises scoring at a breakneck speed, Kohli has quite often been singled out for not been able to keep up with the changing landscape of T20 batting considering he has been opening for RCB.
However, there has been a clear intent from Kohli to score quickly in the Powerplay and after his recent fiery knock of 70 off 44 against Gujarat Titans, he responded to the criticism during a chat with the broadcasters.
“All the people who talk about strike-rates and me not playing spin well are the ones talking about this stuff (his low strike-rate),” Kohli had said. “For me, it’s about winning the games for the team and there’s a reason why you’ve done it for 15 years, you’ve done this day in and day out, you’ve won games for your teams, I’m not quite sure that if you haven’t been in that situation yourself, to sit and talk about the game from the box.”
Former New Zealand pacer Simon Doull though feels that there’s no need for Kohli to be bothering about the ‘rubbish’ that is being written on him on social media.
“Interesting that he (Kohli) goes back to these things because they won’t be asking him. Are you looking up your strike rate? Those won’t be the questions. Clearly he’s reading social media or someone is reading all the social media about him,” Doull said on Cricbuzz.
“And he does this quite often in post-match presentations, where he has a point to make about stuff that is written about him. Why is he bothering? I mean, seriously, the bloke is such a good player. Why is he bothering reading the rubbish that some people write or why are people reading it and telling him? I don’t understand that? I just look at what he’s done. Why would you bother reading social media and try to make a point about it in interviews? If he’s reading social media, he should have better things to do,” he added.
