On April 10 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, the hosts were cruising through the Lucknow Super Giants because of RCB captain Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli. While the home team scored 56 runs during the powerplay, the pair played some wonderful cricket and destroyed the LSG bowlers. For the most part, Faf was acting as an anchor while Virat Kohli played an aggressive style of cricket, but that soon altered as the field limit was relaxed. Kohli scored only 19 runs in his last 19 deliveries after first scoring 42 runs off 25 deliveries.
Simon Doull, a former cricketer, was upset with Kohli’s final score of 61 runs off of 44 pitches. Simon Doull afterwards criticized Kohli for having a low strike rate. Remarkably, RCB scored only 48 runs from the end of the powerplay until the 14th over of the game, which may have contributed to their defeat at the hands of Lucknow given that the visiting club only required one run to win on the last delivery.
The commentary team member Simon Doull, who was critical of Kohli, claimed that the former RCB skipper slowed down because he was anxious about the impending milestone. He continued by saying that such a game has no place in contemporary cricket.
“Kohli began off like a train; he played a lot of shots while working nonstop. With ten balls, he moved from 42 to 50. a milestone is causing concern. That’s no longer appropriate in this game, in my opinion. Keep going is all that’s required, especially with wickets in hand at that point.
As paraphrased by Wisden, Simon Doull stated on commentary, “You’ve got to keep going.
In the meantime, the 53-year-old has made a similar observation before. He had earlier made fun of Pakistan’s captain Babar Azam for his strike rate, and the two later had words about it during the Pakistan Super League. Simon Doull believed that rather than prioritizing the team, Babar was solely interested in getting his century.
After suffering their second consecutive loss, the Faf du Plessis-led RCB team is currently sixth in the IPL Points Table. Things do not appear to be looking good for the team at this time.