The IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore won its 12th match which was played against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium but the former RCB skipper Virat Kohli had a very bad day on the field as he got out for golden duck for the third time in the IPL 2022. The toss was won by RCB and it decided to bat first but the start of the innings was disappointing because the opener Kohli got out on the very first ball of the innings.
Virat is definitely one of the greatest batsmen of all times but he has been going through a lean phase for a long time. In the IPL 2022, he may have scored a half-century in one match but then his strike rate was pretty low. In the 12 matches that he has played in the tournament, he has scored 219 runs in 12 innings at the strike rate of 111.34 with an average of 19.63 which is very low as far as his standards are concerned.
After giving a simple catch to the SRH skipper Kane Williamson on the bowling of Jagadeesha Suchith, Virat Kohli walked back to the dug-out with frustration clearly visible on his face. Later on, he was captured by the camera chatting with a teammate about his dismissal and expressing his disappointment. It was then the RCB head coach Sanjay Bangar went to Virat Kohli, consoled him and also hugged him to make him feel better.
Here is the video in which you can see how disappointed and grieved Virat Kohli was and how Sanjay Bangar consoled the Indian cricketer:
https://twitter.com/JERSY18TIGER/status/1523278178029998080
As far as the match is concerned, even after losing Virat Kohli on the very first ball, RCB managed to put up a score of 192/3 on the board with the help of the brilliant knocks of skipper Faf du Plessis (73 runs not out, 50 balls, 8 fours & 2 sixes), Rajat Patidar (48 runs, 38 balls, 4 fours & 2 sixes), Glenn Maxwell (33 runs, 24 balls, 3 fours & 2 sixes) and a fiery innings of 30 runs not out by Dinesh Karthik who played only 8 balls and his innings included 1 four & 4 sixes.
In response, SRH had a very bad start as both its openers Abhishek Sharma and Kane Williamson were not able to open their accounts. Rahul Tripathi (58 runs, 37 balls, 6 fours & 2 sixes) and Aiden Markram (21 runs, 27 balls, 1 four & 1 six) tried to stabilize the innings but after they got out, no SRH batsman excluding Nicholas Pooran (19 runs, 14 balls, 2 fours & 1 six) could even touch the double digit mark. The whole SRH team got out for 125 runs in 19.2 overs and RCB registered a big win in the tournament which also took them one step closer to entering the play-offs.
Do you think Virat Kohli will regain his form in the remaining matches of the IPL 2022 or you feel that he should take a break from cricket as advised by some former cricketers? Let us know your opinion.