Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan has slammed the critics of Virat Kohli, who are gunning for his head due to the way he bats in the T20 format. Kohli has his own style of approaching the shortest format and doesn’t get over-aggressive, as admitted by himself. The star batter has scored over 300 runs for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL 2024, but the team lost four out of five games.
Kohli faced 72 balls to score 113 runs in the latest game against Rajasthan Royals. The team posted just 183 runs in 20 overs and lost the contest by 6 wickets. A section of the fans and critics feel Kohli is consuming a lot of balls without scoring runs at a brisk pace, and his T20 template is outdated.
Irfan was miffed with the critics and took a dig at them. “Stop targeting and criticizing Virat for his strike rate. He scored 113 runs at a strike rate of above 150, which is not bad at all. We have to look at the performance of the other batters. What they did and what was their strike rate?
“RCB reached just 183, not because of the way Kohli played but because of the failures of other batters. Cameron Green faced 6 balls to score just 5 runs, and even others failed to provide the accelaration,” Irfan Pathan said on Star Sports.
Apart from a century, Kohli has struck two half-centuries. RCB started their campaign with a defeat against the Chennai Super Kings. They bounced back against the Punjab Kings but lost three consecutive games. Kolkata Knight Riders, Lucknow Super Giants, and Rajasthan thumped them in the 17th season.
Related