New Delhi: As several members of the Indian cricket team struggled to find rhythm in the tenth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), one cricketer, whose dismal show took everybody by surprise was Virat Kohli. The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper, who had an incredible last season, failed to live up to the expectations in IPL 2017.
Kohli, who scored close to a thousand runs last season, including four centuries, managed to score just 250 runs at an average of 27.77 this year.
Former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting, one of the finest batsmen to have played the game, criticised Kohli for his poor show in IPL 2017.
“They got on an amazing roll at the back end of last year’s tournament when Kohli was playing out of his skin, de Villiers was playing well, Gayle was chipping in and Watson was doing a good job with bat and ball. But so far Kohli has done next to nothing, there’s been flashes in the pan from Gayle and AB de Villiers, but the consistency just hasn’t been there,” cricket.com.au quoted Ponting as saying.
Punter added that the absence of opening batsman Lokesh Rahul, who was ruled out of the tournament due to a shoulder injury, was another reason behind Bangalore’s struggle throughout the tournament.
“KL Rahul is a massive loss for them. He had a terrific back-end to last season. He did some amazing things last year, so him not being at the top has been a big loss,” cricket.com.au quoted Ponting as saying.
“He and Virat were a pretty formidable opening pair last year. You couldn’t argue with what they did last year and they’ve played a bit of cricket with each other in the Indian Test team for the few months leading in to the IPL. So they would have had a good dynamic there at the top of the order and unfortunately that’s been missing for them,” he added.
Riding on Kohli’s red-hot form, RCB ended up as the runners-up last season, where they were beaten by Sunrisers Hyderabad in the final.
This year, they are currently languishing at the bottom of the points table with two wins and a draw after 13 matches.
They will take on Delhi Daredevils in their final match of the tournament on May 14 at the Feroz Shah Kotla.
Source: Zee News