Former pacer of New Zealand, Simon Doull believes Virat Kohli is unnecessarily bothering about some gibberish comments made about him regarding his gameplay. Simon feels that Virat Kohli is too good of a player to get bothered by such trivial remarks and care to respond back.
Why Simon reacted? It’s because Kohli lashed out at the critics, who questioned Kohli’s low strike rate and ability to perform outside the powerplays after Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) nine-wicket win against Gujarat Titans (GT) on 28th April 2024, at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad.
It’s about winning the games for the team- Virat Kohi
The 34-year-old star batter smashed a whopping undisputed 70 off 44 deliveries to get RCB their win. The GT set a target score of 201 which was smoothly chased down by Virat Kohli along with Will Jacks smashing an undefeated century at the strike rate of 243.90. Kohli saw the post-match interview as a golden opportunity to counter back at the critics.
“All the people who talk about strike-rates and me not playing spin well are the ones talking about this stuff (his low strike-rate). 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,” said Kohli.
Simon Doull furious on Virat Kohli
Reflecting on Virat’s comments, Simon Doull mentioned on Cricbuzz:
“Why is he bothering? I mean, seriously, the bloke is such a good player. Why is he bothering reading the rubbish that some people write or why are people reading it and telling him? I don’t understand that? I just look at what he’s done. Why would you bother reading social media and try to make a point about it in the interviews? If he’s reading social media, he should have better things to do,”
He (Simon) further added:
“Interesting that he (Kohli) goes back to these things because they won’t be asking him. Are you looking up your strike rate? Those won’t be the questions. Clearly he’s reading social media or someone is reading all the social media about him. He (Kohli) does this quite often in post-match presentations, where he has a point to make about stuff that is written about him,”
Having listened to this, Virat Kohli increased his strike rate to an outstanding 147.49 from 131.02 in the ongoing IPL season. As of yet, Kohli is the highest run scorer in the IPL 2024 season with 500 runs in total and an average of 71 in 10 games.
Despite Virat Kohli’s heroicism, RCB has remained at the bottom of the points table
In this IPL season, RCB has remained at the bottom of the points table, having won only 3 out of 10 matches so far, regardless of RCB’s star batter, Virat Kohli’s sensational batting form.
As of now, the Faf du Plessis-led side is at the bottom of the points table, even after winning their last two matches to break their six-match losing streak. Still, the RCBs have much left to do if they want to get qualified, which is highly unlikely because they need to win their all remaining matches.
In the meantime, Virat Kohli has reached the 500-run milestone in this IPL season for the 7th time. The former captain will be seen in action on May 4th against GT in Bengaluru on Saturday.