Kohli amassed 341 runs at an average of 22.73 and a strike rate of 115.98 in the IPL 15 season.
Reflecting on his performance, former India opener Virender Sehwag said Kohli has made “more mistakes in one IPL season” than he has in his entire 14-year international career.
“This is not the Virat Kohli that we know. This is a different Virat Kohli playing this season. Otherwise the number of mistakes that he has committed this season, he hasn’t done it in his entire career,” he told Cricbuzz.
Sehwag, however, empathised with Kohli as he feels that the veteran RCB batter got out in all possible manners in the IPL 2022 season.
“It can happen when you are not scoring runs. You try looking at various options to get out of bad patch and that leads you to getting dismissed in various ways. This season, Kohli has been out in all possible ways that one can think of,” he added.
In the IPL 2022 Qualifier 2, which RCB lost to RR by 7 wickets, Kohli got out while chasing a delivery from pacer Prasidh Krishna wide outside the off-stump.
“When you are out of form, then you have tendency of trying to middle each and every delivery. A batter thinks, if I can middle the ball, I will gain more confidence.
“However Virat did leave a lot of deliveries in that first over (from Trent Boult) but this is what happens when you are out of form. You tend to chase the deliveries wide outside the off-stump. You start following each of them. So when you have luck going your way, even in bad form, you will not edge it but here this didn’t happen,” Sehwag explained.
Virender Sehwag also pointed out at Kohli’s indecisive poke at the delivery.
“The delivery that he got out to — it had pace and bounce. So he could have either left it or may be just go hard at it. Who knows, it might have flown over keeper’s head but what he did was give simple catch practice. It was as if he was giving catching practice like we do for the slip fielders during net session,” he said.
According to Sehwag, Kohli disappointed his millions of fans as one expects him to rise to the big occasion.
“He has certainly disappointed everyone. We all expect that in a big game, the big player will perform, he disappointed not only himself but also his legion of fans and the RCB fans,” he remarked.
(With PTI inputs)