IPL 2023: 'I am playing my best:' Virat Kohli hits back after criticism over strike rate
Virat Kohli scored his second consecutive ton against GT. (Source: @IPL)
Royal Challengers Bangalore batsman Virat Kohli had a record-breaking night against Gujarat Titans in the last league match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 as he scored his seventh ton in IPL - most by any batsman in the league history.
This was Virat's second consecutive hundred in IPL 2023 but it could not help his team from getting eliminated from the league. Kohli, meanwhile, has hit back as the critics after the match for being questioned on his strike rate - which has hovered around 130s throughout the season.
What did Virat Kohli say?
“I felt great. Lot of people think that my T20 cricket is declining, I don't feel like that at all. I think I am playing my best T20 cricket again,” said the former India skipper on his game.
“I'm just enjoying myself. This is how I play T20 cricket, I look to hit gaps, hit a lot of boundaries and then the big ones towards the end if the situation allows me to. You have to read situations and rise up to the occasion when the situation demands. I feel really good with my game at the moment and how I'm batting,” he added further.
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Virat's season in numbers
Kohli played in all 14 matches for RCB and batted in all of them as an opener. The batsman scored third most runs in the league - 639, behind only Orange cap holder and his skipper Faf du Plessis - 730 run and Shubman Gill - 680 runs. Kohli's strike rate - 139.82, however, is the slowest among top three.
Curious case of Virat's strike rate
Kohli's best season was in 2016 when the batsman scored at a whopping strike rate of 150+, the only time in his IPL career as well. While he has had two decent seasons after 2016, that is in 2018 and 2019, Kohli hasn't been in the best of form since 2022, with his best strike rate being 121.35 in 2020. The batsman albeit scored 400+ runs two times out of three.
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