Kohli Scoring Rate: Will It Haunt RCB?

As Mahendra Singh Dhoni rightly pointed out a couple of days ago, the IPL is well and truly transitioning into a new face. The game has sped up considerably and players are expected to bat with a strike rate of over 200 consistently now.

The bare minimum strike rate for a top powder batsman is around 180 and in upwards of 200 these days. Anything slower than that could very well come back to haunt the team as big scores of 200 runs plus in an innings has become a normalcy these days.

In this context, there are certain complaints about these scoring rate of Virat Kohli, and this is again coming to discussion after his sluggish knock of 51 runs from 47 balls which could have come back to haunt RCB if it wasn’t for a winning knock from Krunal Pandya.

If we look at the recent scoring patterns of Virat Kohli in the first 10 games, here’s how it looks.

vs KKR: 59* (36 balls)

vs CSK: 31 (30 balls)

vs GT: 7 (6 balls)

vs MI: 67 (42 balls)

vs DC: 22 (14 balls)

vs RR: 62* (45 balls)

vs PBKS: 1 (3 balls)

vs PBKS: 73* (54 balls)

vs RR: 70 (42 balls)

vs DC: 51 (47 balls)   

Well, they’re not be too much to ponder about at this point in time, considering that RCB is at the top of the table at number one position, when things go south, Kohli will have to take the blame. There is the increasing demand for Kohli to amplify his scoring rate.

But at the end of the day, Kohli can’t entirely be blamed for this scenario. He is the kind of player who would want to score runs quickly and help his team. But if the pitch conditions are wearing and scoring is tough, like the way it looked last night, he too will have to deal with certain situations.