Virat Kohli says the sweep has become his main option for scoring runs in the middle overs in IPL matches.
Virat Kohli’s 47-ball 92 against Punjab Kings on Thursday helped RCB to 241 for 7.
Virat Kohli, who batted skillfully, hit 6 sixes and 7 fours for the team with an Strike rate of 195.74.
“I’ve brought out the slog-sweep to the spinners. I just mentally put myself in that situation and I didn’t practice it at all,” said Virat Kohli, who got the man of the match award.
“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.
“For me that has been a massive factor in this IPL. So, I think it just takes a bit more conviction and take 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 really 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.”
Virat Kohli’s brilliant batting made it rcb’s 4th win in a row so they can still hope to qualify for the finals.
“The only way to go through a long tournament is to be absolutely honest with yourself,” Kohli said. “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.”
“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.”
RCB captain Faf du Plessis expressed his comment on the same and give tribute to the team’s bowlers and batters.
“I think we’ve scored 200-plus in the last five-six games,”
“Really the method and aggression has been good to see. We had some really good conversations halfway through the season where we felt like we were making the same mistakes over and over again. We changed a bit of the method in the way we approach the game and aggression with the bat was certainly one of them.
“You can see the game has changed and the method has changed. You can’t just play normal T20 cricket anymore. Then, with the ball we didn’t get many wickets in the powerplay. So we just spoke about how do we get more wickets in the powerplay, so we changed a few members. So, if you look at our attack, we have six-seven options. So, that has worked really well.”
Captain du Plessis said.
