Comeback India opener KL Rahul came out in wholehearted support of the underfiring Virat Kohli ahead of the start of the Asia Cup 2022. Rahul addressed questions on his former skipper’s longstanding slump with the bat and said Kohli is not an individual who could be affected by the talk outside.
Moreover, Rahul said he doesn’t think Kohli is out of form or sync with his game right now. The experienced cricketer backed the fellow right-hand batter to produce the goods sooner rather than later.
“We don’t really give much importance to comments. It doesn’t really affect a player, especially a world-class player like Virat will not be affected by what people are saying on the outside. He has had a little break & he is working on his game,”
he told the press prior to India’s much-awaited Asia Cup group stage clash against Pakistan on August 28.
Rahul, who had been sidelined with a groin injury and bout with Covid over the best of the past three months, said the Kohli he watched from the distance isn’t going through form issues.
“When I was injured & home for 2 months, I was watching him on TV, didn’t feel like he looked out of form.”
“Standards he has set for himself, he hasn’t been able to get that much. I’m sure he’s hungry to win matches for the country. That’s what he has done throughout his career.”
Rahul may not concur with the outside view but numbers suggest a definite decline in Kohli’s game. Once considered a run machine that could do no wrong, Virat last scored an international hundred way back in November 2019 in the first-innings of the D/N Test versus Bangladesh. In this timeframe, he is averaging 27.75 from 18 Tests and 35.82 from 23 ODIs for India.
The rut his game finds himself in has been more evident in T20 cricket, where Kohli has gone through an alarming dip in his game at handling spin.
Since the beginning of 2020, Kohli has had a strike rate of only 103.57 over 19 T20Is for India. The corresponding number for the Indian Premier League stands at 105.22 from 52 innings over the three seasons for Royal Challengers Bangalore.
With Kohli holding the critical No.3 spot in India’s first-choice playing unit, his spin issues pose a major headache for the team management and selectors ahead of the Asia Cup, which begins India’s surge towards the T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia in October-November.
As teams line up more overs of spin against him, India could ill-afford their great batter to get stuck at the crease and waste crucial deliveries while they try to post a sizable score on the board or aim for a huge target.
Coming back to Rahul, the batter made no effort to deny the talk about the Indo-Pak rivalry and said as players he and his teammates just have to accept whatever comes with it but also strive to keep their heads calm and perform to their level best.
“We can’t run away from the rivalry between the two teams (India vs Pakistan) and the emotion which is there comes out anyway. And as a player, you can’t run away or shy away from it. As a youngster, I always wanted to be part of it.”
“Once you cross the rope, it’s just between bat and ball. You just see the opposition as opposition and you try to be as best as possible. And I am sure it must be the same for the players of either side,”
he concluded.
