'He sees the big dog and...': Karthik can't keep calm after Virat Kohli wades into Jofra Archer

Virat Kohli took Jofra Archer to the cleaner scoring 28 off 17 balls and clearly winning Round 1 of the battle.

As the Royal Challengers Bangalore hosted the Mumbai Indians at the Chinnaswamy Stadium for the first time in four years, there was a battle within the battle that stole the show. Virat Kohli vs Jofra Archer was a battle everyone had their eyes on and the world got to witness it on Sunday evening. In the end, there was clearly one winner and he belonged to the winning team as Kohli dished out a brutal punishment to Archer and spoiled his IPL 2023 comeback in the process.

Virat Kohli goes down the ground against MI (PTI)

Kohli and Archer came face to face in the fourth over of the RCB innings and drama unfolded from the first ball itself. Kohli showed no signs of holding himself and went after Archer straightaway. Going for a bullish drive, Kohli mistimed the ball and hit it straight back at Archer but the pacer failed to take the catch. From there on, Kohli made no mistakes and went on to score 28 runs off the 17 balls faced from the England pacer. Kohli dominated Archer and while everyone in the RCB camp seemed to enjoy it plenty, Dinesh Karthik liked it a bit more than others. Well, at least that's what his statement suggests.

"Look I think that is Virat Kohli. He sees the big dog in the opponent and realises that he wants to take him on. That's the guy he wants to take on, makes a statement, steps out and hits him over mid-on. Not many people can say they have stepped out to Jofra and hit him over covers. The pull shot that he got, just the way he dominated. He made a statement that 'look I am here and I want to make a difference to this team. Today Jofra obviously had his first game for MI as well. The way Virat played him was a confidence booster when you look from the outside," Karthik said after RCB defeated MI by 8 wickets.

After getting dropped, Kohli went into overdrive off the very next ball, hitting Archer for a four and then whacking him straight down he ground for a six. Kohli wasn't done there as he flicked another four and pulled Archer over deep mid-wicket and into the stands in the MI pacer's second spell. Archer's figures were spoiled and Kohli won Round 1 of this year's IPL battle. In fact, the 28 runs that Kohli scored at a strike rate of 165, were the most by any batter against Archer in a T20 match.