‘They Think Virat Kohli is God’: Sidhu and Mohammad Kaif adds fuel to strike-rate debate after Kohli’s explosive post-match comments

Indian Premier League 2024: Star batter Virat Kohli played one of his most fluent T20 knocks in recent memory when his unbeaten 70 off 44 balls powered RCB to a 9-wicket win over GT on Sunday. Kohli notched up his 4th fifty of the season to take his tally to 500 runs, firmly consolidating his place as the Orange Cap holder.

With an average of 71.4 and a strike rate of 147.4, Kohli hasn’t done too bad, but as usual, the daggers are out. The pace at which Kohli has scored runs and his strike rate against spinners has come under scrutiny in the wake of Bengaluru’s poor runs in IPL 2024, more so after the SRH game, where he ambled to 51 off 43 balls.

After Kohli and Jacks successfully gunned down 200 – the latter scoring his maiden IPL century with an unbeaten 100 off 41 balls – the former RCB captain came up with a fiery response to his critics. Kohli slammed his doubters and questioned their position to make a statement ‘from the box’. He pointed out how after playing for 15 years, he knows his job – to ensure his team wins – with most of it stemming from muscle memory.

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RCB star post-match comment created quite astir, his ‘attitude’ not impressing users on Twitter. However, Kohli found support from ex-players Mohammad Kaif and Navjot Sidhu.

During the second game of Sunday’s doubleheader, Kaif and Sidhu, while doing commentary duties, touched on the debate surrounding Kohli’s strike rate, jumping to the aid of the former India captain.

“All I hear about these days is strike-rate. People are after Kohli. Boss, between overs 7 and 15, it’s obvious to slow down. The economy rate of a spinner is lower than a fast bowler. Why? Because they bowl the middle overs,” Kaif said.

What else is Virat Kohli going to do, asks Sidhu

While Virat Kohli has been compared to legendary Sachin Tendulkar, Sidhu reminded how Virat isn’t a God, and that expecting him to do everything and tick all boxes makes the public wrong on their part.

Taking an example of Virat Kohli’s exemplary batting against Gujarat Titans Sai Kishore, whom Kohli smashed for back-to-back sixes in the 6th over, Sidhu challenged to show him a batter who excels at taking a slow left-arm bowler against the spin.

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“People think Kohli is God. He is a human, so will play like a human too. Rather than nitpick, why don’t we look at the fact that the guy has 80 centuries? That’s his strength and weakness, he has none. And if you look carefully, today he played off the backfoot and lofted the spinners. Tell me how many can do that? Hitting a left-arm spinner against the spin… how many can do that? So Kohli has a presence, he cherishes his wicket too. What else is he supposed to do?” mentioned Sidhu.