Virat Kohli recorded his third golden duck of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 season against SunRisers Hyderabad on Sunday and once again a debate has started on whether the batter should take a break to rejuvenate himself. The idea was first floated by former Team India head coach Ravi Shastri, who has followed Kohli from close quarters. Whether the former India skipper needs a break was even discussed on-air by Harsha Bhogle, Matthew Hayden and Sunil Gavaskar while they were doing commentary for the match between RCB and SRH.
During the second over of the match which was being bowled by Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harsha Bhogle raised Ravi Shastri’s point, saying: “Ravi Shastri suggested that Virat Kohli needs a break.”
To this, Matthew Hayden said does Shastri says the same about Rohit Sharma, who has also not been able to fire in the ongoing IPL edition.
“Does he say the same about Rohit Sharma? I mean these guys are playing cricket all the time, of course these tournaments, they come around so quickly, you get yourself into a mental space and Kohli has been brilliant at it for so many years, so animated, so passionate. To come off that though just for a moment and you are under pressure,” said Hayden while on-air.
“It takes so much courage as well, no player ever believes that they can go to the selector and go, ‘sorry, I need to be out’ because you wanna play, you wanna be that person to take control of the innings. It is so frustrating when you are getting into a little rut, you cannot find ways out. Sometimes it can be an explosive cover drive, a great pull shot or in Virat Kohli’s case, just a fantastic one or two with hard and positive body language like David Warner,” he added.
“The only reason I brought that up, Ravi and Virat have known each other so well over the last 3-4 years, have run a lot of campaigns together, been very good at Test cricket. He knows the inner mind,” Bhogle replied to Hayden
Giving his opinion on the matter, Sunil Gavaskar said: “As long as the break does not mean that you are missing India matches. India matches have to be No.1 every single time, as simple as that.”
Against SRH, Kohli was sent back to the pavilion by Jagadeesha Suchith for a golden duck. Kohli has just 216 runs in 12 games this season. This was the sixth time overall that Kohli has registered a golden duck in the IPL.
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Talking about the game between RCB and SRH, the former batted first and posted 192/3 in 20 overs. Chasing 193, Rahul Tripathi scored 58 but no other batter managed to stay with him at the other end with RCB going on to register a 67-run win.
RCB are in fourth spot in the points table with 14 points from 12 games.
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