Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) eye a place in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 playoffs when they face Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in a do-or-die contest on Saturday. With five wins on the trot, RCB have managed to turn their fortunes around. They were rooted at the foot of the table after losing seven of their first eight matches. However, a string of positive results have put them within touching distance of a top four finish in the league phase. One player who has been crucial in RCB’s revival is none other than star batter and former captain Virat Kohli, who leads the Orange Cap race in IPL 2024.
The 35-year-old continues to be the highest scorer, with 661 runs at a strike rate of 155.16 from 13 matches. While scoring runs has never been a problem for Kohli, his strike-rate has been often put under scrutiny by experts and fans.
However, in his last five innings, Kohli has been batting with a lot on intent and his strike-rate has also been on the positive side.
Ahead of their match against CSK, Kohli sat down with Mr Nags – a character played by TV presenter Danish Sait – for a light-hearted chat.
The video was shared by RCB on their social media handles. In the video, Nags hilariously asked Kohli whether he is friends with him because he is a common man and not a commentator.
Reacting to Nags’ question, Kohli understood the pun behind it as he had wry smile on his face. However, Nags didn’t stop there as he left Kohli speechless with his ‘Sunil’ reference.
“See Virat, I want to talk about a friend of yours. Not mine but your friend. He said a lot of nice things about you… Sunil,” said Mr Nags with a cheeky smile.
“Who?” Kohli asked perplexedly. “Chhetri,” Nags replied. The duo then broke into a spontaneous laugh.
The Interview you’ve all been waiting for is finally here.
Mr. Nags meets Virat Kohli, cuts a cake to celebrate the 10th year of @bigbasket_com presents RCB Insider Show and relives their friendship over the years.#PlayBold #RCB #IPL2024 pic.twitter.com/fzJ2EGZrFm
— Royal Challengers Bengaluru (@RCBTweets) May 17, 2024
Despite Nags insisting that the Sunil was none other than the retiring football team captain Chhetri, fans were quick to figure of the pun behind it.
For the unversed, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar had criticised Kohli for his outburst on people questioning his batting intent and strike-rate.
“If you have a strike rate of 118, you come and face the first ball, and then you get out in the 14th or 15th over and your strike rate is 118 – if you want applause for that, then that’s a little bit different. We’ve all played a bit of cricket, not a lot of cricket, but we speak about what we see. We don’t necessarily have any likes and dislikes. Even if we have likes or dislikes, we actually speak about what’s happening. So, I would be very disappointed if Star Sports showed this once more because that would be questioning all of us commentators,” Gavaskar had said on Star Sports after Kohli’s outburst.
