Netizens troll Rohit Sharma after Virat Kohli’s Himachal heroics

With RCB’s fate in the tournament hanging by a thread, Virat Kohli brought out his A-game against Punjab Kings. He was equally aggressive against the pacers and spinners. In particular, to deal with slow bowlers, the 35-year-old used the slog sweep and the slog to good effect.

Of the 92 runs, Virat Kohli made 26 of them against the spinners. With this approach, Virat Kohli seems to be taking a dig at his critics, who have often criticized his batting style against the spinners.

The prime criticism of Virat Kohli regarding his batting against the spinners was his inability to hit sixes and boundaries in the middle overs. However, all that vanished in the last two games of this season’s IPL.

After taking the trio of Gujarat Titans spinners, R Sai Kishore, Rashid Khan, and Noor Ahmad to the cleaners in RCB’s previous game in Ahmedabad, Virat Kohli produced another masterclass, this time showing the same intent against the Punjab Kings tweakers.

En route to his 92 off 47 deliveries, the former India skipper smashed six sixes and seven fours to ensure RCB posted a huge total of 241/7 in their allocated 20 overs.

In reply, Punjab Kings were never in the hunt as they were bowled out for 181 in 17 overs. It was RCB’s 5th victory in the ongoing IPL, which also kept the Bengaluru-based franchise in contention for the playoffs.

Meanwhile, during the course of his innings, Virat Kohli became the first batter to go past the 600-run mark in IPL 2024. His current tally of runs in the 17th season of the IPL stands at 634 runs in 12 games.

Additionally, he joined Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) captain KL Rahul in an elite IPL list. With his tally of over 600 runs in IPL 2024, Virat Kohli became only the second batter after KL Rahul to breach that mark on four different occasions.

Besides, he entered the list of top 5 players who have hit the most sixes in IPL 2024. While he has 30 maximums to his name this season, SRH’s is at the pinnacle of the charts with 35 sixes.

After guiding RCB to another win in IPL 2024, Virat Kohli revealed his tactics against the PBKS bowlers, underlining that he took a few more risks during his knock in Himachal Pradesh compared with his innings in previous matches.

“I’ve brought out the slog-sweep to the spinners. I just mentally put myself in that situation and I didn’t practice it at all. I know I can hit it because I’ve hit it a lot in the past. So, I just felt like I need to take a bit more risk and for me that shot was something that I used to hit regularly back in the day. And that’s allowing me to hit off the back foot as well because I’m always looking to expose that side of the field against the spin,” Virat Kohli said in the post-match presentation ceremony.

“For me that has been a massive factor in this IPL. So, I think it just takes a bit more conviction and take out that thought that props up: ‘what if you get out’. I’ve been managing to stay ahead of that thought in this IPL and that’s really helped me in the middle overs in this IPL, keeping my strike rate up and keeping the scoring rate going for the team as well,” he added.

“The only way to go through a long tournament is to be absolutely honest with yourself. We were just not good enough in the first half of the tournament. [It’s] precisely why we are in a situation again where so many factors have to go our way. We won the second game of the season and then we had those losses on the trot. A couple of close games but still we were outplayed in most of them,” the former RCB skipper continued.

“We just had an honest chat in the change room. That’s not good enough. Playing at this level, we need to pull up our socks and be a bit more brave with the ball and bat. The starting point was Kolkata, where we came out and bowled like that in the powerplay and kept hunting for wickets in that game. It went down to the wire and that gave us a belief that this is the cricket we want to play and it came to a point where we said ‘you know what don’t look at the [points] table and play for the self-respect we have as cricketers’. We have gone through so many hardships and such a long journey to be at this level. So, we can’t just go out and play in a way that doesn’t make yourself proud and the fans well. They turn out in huge numbers and we just can’t keep disappointing them like that,” he explained.