Another day, another fresh strike-rate talk, with Virat Kohli at the centre of it. This time, however, Kohli himself brought up the topic. After scoring a match-winning 47-ball 92 for Royal Challengers Bengaluru against Punjab Kings, which saw him reach a strike-rate of 195.74 with the help of six sixes and seven fours, Kohli brought up the strike-rate talk yet again in the mid-innings break. The cheekiness of the statement and his smiling gesture gave a strong impression that he was aiming at something.
“Was important for me to keep up the strike rate right through (laughs). I was just focussed on taking the momentum forward. There was a tricky phase when Rajat got out, and there was a break for rain and hail. We had a bit of stop of momentum,” he said at the innings break.
“Had to rebuild for 8-10 balls. Once the base was set and Cam got a few boundaries away, I thought I had to go again. Surface was pretty dry underneath, and there was some grass coverage as well. If you saw Faf and me got done by lack of pace off the pitch. There was a two-paced feel with the new ball, which I think is a great opportunity for our bowlers to make early inroads and exploit that swing out there. We thought anything over 230 would be a good total here. That was the only mindset.”
Easrlier, depite his good form in the IPl 2024, pundits raised concerns about his strike-rate, especially comparing it with modern-age T20 batting.
To which, Kohli recently said: “All the people who talk about strike rates and me not playing spin well are the ones talking about this stuff.
“For me, it’s about winning the games for the team and there’s a reason why you’ve done it for 15 years. You’ve done this day in and day out, you’ve won games for your teams, I’m not quite sure that if you haven’t been in that situation yourself, to sit and talk about the game from the box.”
