Kohli’s slogsweep revival sparks scoring surge

• Virat Kohli’s strike rate against spinners has significantly increased.
• Kohli explains his decision to bring back the slogsweep.
• Kohli acknowledges RCB’s inconsistent start to the tournament.

In the initial nine matches of IPL 2024, Virat Kohli had a strike rate of 123.58 against spinners, scoring 152 runs off 123 balls. However, in his recent three games, the strike rate has escalated to 167.7, with Kohli scoring 109 runs off 65 balls against spin. This improvement is largely due to his effective use of the slogsweep shot.

In his performance against Punjab Kings, Kohli scored 23 runs off 13 balls from spinners, achieving a strike rate of nearly 177. He also maintained his strong performance against fast bowlers, scoring the remaining 69 runs off 34 balls at a strike rate exceeding 200.

“I brought out the slogsweep to the spinners. (It’s) something that I just mentally put myself in that situation. I didn’t practise it at all. I know I can hit it because I’ve hit it a lot in the past. So I just felt like I need to take a bit more risk and for me that shot was something that I used to hit regularly back in the day and that’s allowing me to now hit off the backfoot as well, because now I’m looking to expose that side (legside) of the field against the spin which for me has been a massive factor in this IPL,” Kohli elaborated during the post-match presentations.

“I think it takes a bit more conviction and to take out that thought that props up – ‘what if you get out?’ I think I have been managing to stay ahead of that thought in this IPL. And that’s really helped me through the middle overs, keep my strike rate up and keeping that scoring rate going for the team as well,” Kohli added.

The Kings’ multiple dropped catches did not aid their cause, as both Kohli and Rajat Patidar, who scored a 23-ball 55, capitalized on these mistakes. Kohli and Patidar established a third-wicket partnership of 76 runs off 32 balls before Green joined Kohli to add 92 runs off 46 balls for the fourth wicket, enabling RCB to set a formidable total of 241/7, which proved too much for PBKS.

“That’s the beauty of having Virat in your team. The opposition teams can’t give him that many chances, he’s always going to make you hurt, especially if you drop him three or four times, especially early in his innings when he’s trying to be really aggressive. After the couple of dropped catches he looked like he didn’t have much to lose. So he played the vintage Virat, the way we all know, and it was beautiful watching from the other end,” Green commented at the post-match press conference.

Brad Haddin, PBKS’ assistant coach, also highlighted the dropped catches as crucial missed opportunities in the match. “You got to look at the game where we dropped their two guys – one got a hundred (Kohli – 92) and one got a fifty (Patidar – 55) – both on a duck. And that’s where the game was won or lost, simply. There wasn’t much in the batting and bowling from both teams. I think the catches we put down cost us the game today.”

Royal Challengers Bengaluru secured their fourth consecutive victory with a 60-run win over Kings, keeping their playoff aspirations alive. However, they still need to win their remaining two matches and rely on several other outcomes to secure a spot in the competition’s final four.

“We were just not good enough in the first half of the tournament, precisely why we are in a situation again where so many factors after we win our (remaining) two games still have to go our way. Which is not an ideal scenario to be part of, especially after we won the second game of the season and then we had those losses on the trot. We had a couple of close games but still we were outplayed in most of them. We just had a honest chat in the change room that that’s not good enough. Playing at this level we need to pull up our socks and be a bit more brave with the ball and the bat,” Kohli stated.

“And I think the starting point was in Kolkata where we came out and bowled like that in the powerplay and we kept hunting for wickets and that game went down to the wire. And that gave us a bit more belief that this is the cricket we want to play, and it came to a point where we said ‘don’t look at the table or anything like that. Play for the self respect we have as cricketers’.

“We’ve gone through so many hardships and such a long journey to be at this level. So we can’t just go out there and play in a way that doesn’t make yourselves proud, and the fans as well. They turn out in huge numbers and we can’t keep disappointing them like this. So we need to raise our level and really play for our own pride as a team. And now we’re on a roll but then you go back thinking what if just a week earlier if this momentum had caught up, so we wouldn’t be in this position to depend on so many factors,” he said.

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