Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar has criticized Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) batter, Virat Kohli, for his diminishing power game and said that 5-6 years ago, his sixes used to be huge, but now, he is barely clearing the boundary ropes.

Manjrekar was analyzing Kohli’s knock of 48 in the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) vs Mumbai Indians (MI) match in the IPL 2022. Kohli played some sublime shots before being controversially given out LBW off the first ball bowled by Dewald Brevis in his IPL career.  

Virat Kohli has so far amassed 106 runs from four matches averaging 35.33 and a strike rate of 135.90. He excruciatingly fell two runs short of what would have been his first half-century of the season in the previous game.

However, Sanjay Manjrekar was not convinced of Kohli’s form despite his knock and singled out the right-hander’s six-hitting prowess and how his sixes have become shorter and only landed near the ropes.

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“Virat Kohli did score some runs but when I see him, I focus on how far his sixes go – near the boundary, in the stands or the second tier. He’s still only just clearing the boundary ropes and this is what I have often said in the past year – Virat Kohli’s power game has diminished a bit. Five-six years ago he used to hit big sixes. I will focus on that and not him hitting 50 or 60 runs. Once his power game gets better then I’ll say Virat Kohli has arrived in T20 cricket”, said Manjrekar on ESPNCricinfo.

Kohli is the highest run-getter in the Indian Premier League with more than 6300 runs to his name with five centuries at an average of 39.36 and a strike rate of 130.