Former India captain Virat Kohli and Royal Challengers Bangalore's wait for their first IPL extended after they went down to Rajasthan Royals in Qualifier-2. The 2016 IPL runners-up also saw Kohli's struggles with the willow. The star batter endured a torrid season as he recorded three golden ducks and averaged 22.73 across the tournament, his lowest since the 2010 season. Kohli, who had relinquished Bangalore captaincy last year, remains an important character of the franchise despite the batting slump.
Many including former Ravi Shastri said the out-of-sorts batter, who has not managed to score a century in 100-plus matches in all formats, needs a 'break'. Kohli's form remains a hot topic of debate at present. But Rohit Sharma's childhood coach Dinesh Lad has backed the mercurial player to find his mojo and even break Sachin Tendulkar's illustrious 100-century milestone. Kohli currently has 70 international hundreds under his belt.
"Virat is a wonderful batsman, and I feel he'll make a strong comeback. Almost every cricketer has had to go through a bad patch - even Vivian Richards and Sunil Gavaskar went through a bad patch. I think it's more about mental strength rather than form. He should concentrate on that. Rest he'll bat well, we can't talk much about that. I want him to break Sachin's century record," Dinesh told India TV.
{{/usCountry}}"Virat is a wonderful batsman, and I feel he'll make a strong comeback. Almost every cricketer has had to go through a bad patch - even Vivian Richards and Sunil Gavaskar went through a bad patch. I think it's more about mental strength rather than form. He should concentrate on that. Rest he'll bat well, we can't talk much about that. I want him to break Sachin's century record," Dinesh told India TV.
{{/usCountry}}Earlier, former Australian speedster Brett Lee also said that the batter can consider taking a break to freshen up his mind. Kohli amassed 341 runs in 16 IPL games despite opening for Bangalore in most games of the tournament this year.
"Do I say it is a concern, I do. I would like him (Kohli) to be scoring more runs of course," Lee told PTI. "The hardest thing is when Virat Kohli doesn't score runs, generally the team doesn't do well. When we see Kohli had that purple patch, when he got 800-900 runs in that season (IPL 2016) his team (Royal Challengers Bangalore) fared pretty well. We want more from Kohli."
The 33-year-old Kohli isn't a part of the upcoming T20Is against South Africa but will be seen playing the one-off Test versus England in July.
The Rohit Sharma-led Indian camp will be playing at full strength in the crucial Test, which had been scheduled for last September at Old Trafford but was postponed following Covid-19 cases.
“A strong Kohli is a strong team. Unfortunately, he missed out in the semis; he could not get his team to cross the line of his own bat, getting less than 10 runs.”
"Maybe (it is) a chance for Kohli to go back and try work on a few things and maybe just have a rest from cricket. Just get away and just freshen up the mind," Lee further added.