'Kohli had a stop-start career' - Sunil Gavaskar credits this player for Kohli's transformation
Sunil Gavaskar had earlier criticized Virat Kohli for his strike rates during the initial games of IPL 2024.
Virat Kohli is one of the greats of the modern era. The star batter has won a numerous amount of games for India and his IPL team Royal Challengers Bengaluru. In IPL 2024, Kohli is in fabulous form with the bat. The RCB veteran has scored 661 runs in 13 matches and is the highest run-getter of the season so far.
He has been scoring runs consistently which has allowed RCB to post match-winning totals in the last few games. His knocks have propelled RCB to a position where they can dream to qualify for the playoffs, if they win the crucial game against CSK in Bengaluru by a margin of 18 runs or 11 balls to spare.
Sunil Gavaskar credits MS Dhoni for Kohli's transformation
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar credited MS Dhoni for Virat Kohli's drastic transformation into a legend. While speaking during the rain break in the match between Mumbai Indians and Lucknow Super Giants on Star Sports, Gavaskar felt that it was MS Dhoni who gave Kohli the backing despite the latter's stop-start career.
"When Virat Kohli started his career, it was a stop-start career. The fact that MS Dhoni gave him that little extra momentum is why he is the Kohli we see today," Gavaskar reckoned.
Recently, Gavaskar had criticized Kohli over his low strike rates in some of the games played this season. During the powerplay, Kohli had a strike rate of 131 in the first six matches of the season. But since then, he has taken his game to a next level. Kohli is striking at 193 in the next seven.
When Kohli was asked to comment on the matter, he lashed out at former India opener by saying that it is easy to speak about his game from the box.
"All the people who talk about strike rates and me not playing spin well are the ones who love talking about this stuff. But for me, it's just about winning the game for the team. And there's a reason why you do it for 15 years - because you've done this day in [and] day out; you've won games for your teams," Kohli had said during a post-match presentation earlier
"I am not quite sure if you've been in that situation yourself to sit and speak about the game from a box. I don't really think it's the same thing [as playing out there]. So for me, it's just about doing my job. People can talk about their own ideas and assumptions of the game, but those who have done it day in [and] day out know what's happening, and it's kind of a muscle memory for me now," he added.
Also read: Former India star reveals he was CSK's first choice before MS Dhoni
The upcoming game between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Chennai Super Kings on Saturday will be a virtual quarter-final as the team which wins is likely to go further. However, RCB needs to win by 18 runs or with 11 balls spare to qualify. For CSK, the task is much simpler as they just need to win the game. If the match is washed out due to rain which is a high possibility given the weather conditions, CSK will go through.
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