Virat Kohli was the star of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) win over Punjab Kings (PBKS) in Dharamshala the other night in the ongoing IPL 2024. With this win, RCB now has four victories on the trot and remains alive in the race for playoffs.
Virat Kohli shouldered the RCB batting unit with a well-crafted 92 runs in 47 balls with 7 fours and 6 sixes and as RCB won the match by 60 runs, he was also named the Player of the Tournament.
With this knock, Kohli also went past the 600-run mark in the IPL 2024 and now has 634 runs, making his grip on the Orange Cap for the most runs even tighter. Kohli also became only the second batter to score 600 or more runs in an IPL season four times, achieving this feat after KL Rahul.
After the match, Virat Kohli talked about how he has brought out the slog sweep to counter spin this season. He had used the shot effectively against GT in Ahmedabad to nullify Rashid Khan, Noor Ahmad, and Sai Kishore. And against PBKS, he did the same against Rahul Chahar and Liam Livingstone.
"I've brought out the slog-sweep to the spinners (laughs). 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 needed 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,” Kohli said in a post-match presentation.
"For me, that has been a massive factor in this IPL. So, I think it just takes a bit more conviction and takes 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 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.
Kohli said that the one-run defeat to Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens, where Lockie Ferguson was run out off the last ball, was the turning point of their campaign. He said that the RCB unit had an honest chat about their performance and things have changed since then.
"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,” Kohli said.
"We just had an honest chat in the changing 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 signed off.
RCB will now next take on Delhi Capitals on Sunday, May 12 in a night match.
(Star Sports inputs)
