IPL 2024, Decoding Why Virat Kohli Is Playing With A Low Strike Rate?

Virat Kohli is currently the highest run scorer in IPL 2024 [AP Photos]

The Royal Challengers Bengaluru are grappling with a challenging phase in IPL 2024. Their struggle is evident, having lost four of their five games and currently languishing in the ninth position in the points table. The underperformance of their batting line-up has been a major contributor to this situation, raising concerns among the fans and followers. 

The RCB batting lineup boasts names like Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis, and Glenn Maxwell in the top order. But the problem this season has been the poor form of the two overseas superstars. Virat Kohli has been the only shining star, and he has shown brilliant consistency with the bat. Kohi is currently the highest run-scorer in the tournament, but he has faced a lot of backlash due to the low strike rate that he is scoring the runs with. But has his strike rate been really that low? And if it is so then why a batter of his ability is batting so defensively? Let us try and find answers to these burning questions. 

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Virat Kohli vs Other Openers in IPL 2024 (Strike Rates)

Why Virat Kohli has failed to score quickly in IPL 2024?

So, Virat Kohli has the tenth-highest Strike Rate amongst the openers in IPL 2024. But how many of the top 10 batters in this list are in Orange Cup contention (top 10)? Only three - Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, and Abhishek Sharma. Barring Sharma, both Gill and Kohli have a strike rate which is within the 150 mark. So, what does this tell us?

We can conclude from this that each batter on a team has a specific role. You cannot expect everyone to score a large number of runs at a great strike rate.

A closer look at the Strike Rate list will show us that, barring SRH and MI, all other teams have only one opener in the top 10 list. This gives us the idea that while one opener is given the responsibility of increasing the scoring rate at the beginning, it is the job of the other to play the role of an anchor. Kohli falls into this category of openers who steady the ship at one end, and then, as they get settled, they increase their own scoring rate. 

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For a settled batter to increase his own scoring rate, there needs to be other players batting around him. But so far, for RCB, this has not happened; Kohli has been the lone warrior for them, at least at the top order. By the time players like Dinesh Karthik, Anuj Rawat or Mahipal Lomror have come to the crease, Kohli has already been in the hut, succumbing to the pressure of doing too many things all alone.  

Even when he stands as the sole warrior, Virat Kohli has managed to maintain a strike rate of over 145 and has shouldered the responsibility of scoring the majority of runs for RCB. He has stayed true to his role, and the criticism of his strike rate is a result of the failures of the other top-order batters and the questionable recruitments by RCB. This analysis underscores the impact of Kohli's performance on RCB's overall batting performance.