Royal Challengers Bangalore will play their first match against Punjab Kings on 27th March 2022.
Kevin Pietersen, the former England captain, has made an interesting statement regarding his former IPL teammate Virat Kohli and his lack of big scores ahead of RCB's opening match of the IPL 2022 against Punjab Kings (PBKS) on March 27.
It's not a secret that Virat Kohli has struggled to string together huge scores in the last two years in either of the three formats of cricket. The former India captain, who at one point in his career would skip from a fifty to a hundred nonchalantly, has now gone 28 months without scoring a century.
The frequency of ducks has risen, and Kohli's concentration has slipped, something that has never bothered him before. Whatever is bothering Kohli, RCB will be eager to see the best of him when they face Punjab Kings in Mumbai in the IPL 2022 season opener.
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Pietersen, who captained Kohli at the RCB franchise, believes that life in the pandemic-induced bio-bubble has affected Virat Kohli a lot and the former batter says he will not criticize Kohli for the preceding two years of his career.
"I'm not going to judge anybody on their performances over the last couple of years. The unique circumstances that cricket has been played in have not assisted certain individuals and the way that they play," Pietersen wrote in his blog for Betway.
Pietersen further added that Kohli is an entertainer and thrives on the energy he receives from the crowd in the stands. For the past two years, the crowd has been absent from the stadiums due to the pandemic and that is probably the reason behind Kohli's lack of big scores.
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"Virat Kohli is an exhibitionist and an entertainer, and he needs crowds singing his name and going crazy at every one of his runs to get him going. He needs to know that people are there to watch him as he wants to provide them with that entertainment. When you take that away, I'm not surprised that he has struggled."
With Kohli having given up captaincy in all formats and with the crowds returning in the stadiums for IPL 2022, Pietersen believes Kohli 'the greatest' has a fantastic chance to return to his former form as a run-machine.
"Hopefully the return of crowds at this event is the start of things getting back to normal. If so, he'll go back to being the greatest – because he is the greatest. The burden of captaincy being taken away from him at RCB may help, too. He can focus purely on entertaining the fans who adore him so much," he pointed out.