Moody slams Kohli for 'not maximising' total against Punjab

Virat Kohli returned as Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper after two years. He and Faf du Plessis registered a 137-run opening partnership. Both scored half-centuries. RCB put up a pretty good total against Punjab Kings and in the end, won the IPL 2023 match quite comfortably by 24 runs. 

Then how come a host of former cricketers including Matthew Hayden, Rohan Gavaskar, Simon Doull, Michael Vaughan and now Tom Moody are not particularly pleased with the way Kohli batted? The reason is the RCB stalwart's strike rate.

When RCB were nudging 110 in the 14th over, Kohli was batting on 44 off 37 deliveries with just four boundaries. Du Plessis, at the other end, had already hit three sixes and raced to 61 by facing just four more deliveries than Kohli. The situation did not improve much even after Kohli got to his fifty off 40 deliveries. He scored only 9 more runs off 7 balls before getting out to PBKS left-arm spinner Harpreet Brar. RCB's score? 137 in 16.1 overs. For a team that hadn't lost a wicket for 16 overs in T20 cricket, a run rate just above 8 was below par, to say the least.

Kohli's case is a bit different from David Warner's and KL Rahul's. Both Warner and Rahul have been criticised for not showing enough intent and scoring a good clip despite batting for long in this IPL. Kohli, on the other hand, has been quite good at taking the attack to the opposition inside the powerplay. He has been hitting boundaries at will and scoring at an excellent strike rate in the first six overs. It's the overs immediately after the powerplay, that is a worry for the former India captain.

Since 2020, even when RCB have lost 1 or fewer wickets in the powerplay, Kohli's strike rate between the 7th to the 9th over is just 95. Incidentally, that is also the period when the spinners bowl the most. Kohli's strike rate against spin on Thursday was 76 compared to 165 against the seamers. Clearly, there is an issue not just with the mindset but also with his struggles against quality.

"That's not pretty reading, isn't it? At the end of the day, that's something that needs to be looked at," Moody, a former SRH head coach, said on ESPNCricinfo.

The former Australia all-rounder also did not agree with former Indian cricketer Amol Mazumdar, who believed it would have been alright if Kohli had batted all the way and improved his strike rate towards the latter half of the RCB innings. "I know Amol said that it's okay if Virat batted till the end but it's not really okay because they are not maximising as a team, the total they need to be getting.

"They didn't lose their first wicket till they scored 137 and the bulk of the innings was gone. If you have one of the batters striking at 125 after batting that long period of time you from a team perspective is not maximising your score. Clearly, Virat is dominating the powerplay but (in the middle overs) whether it's strategic or he is just getting stuck in the middle needs to be addressed if RCB are to maximise their total," Moody said.