There have been a lot of talks about Virat Kohli’s style of captaincy and how he manages to get the best out of his players. Most of the time, critics have called his methods wrong or too pressurising, but Kohli has got direct support from one of his teammates at the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL.
In an interview with Hindustan Times, RCB’s Harshal Patel has explained Kohli’s ways of doing things and motivating people around him to do good. Taking his personal reference, Patel recalled how a text from Kohli after he was traded to the RCB made a huge boost to his confidence knowing that the team will be behind him in the 14th edition of the IPL.
“The moment I was traded, Virat sent me a message, “welcome back, you are going to play here”. That made a big impact in my confidence and I realised this is a team where I can finally showcase all my skills,” Patel said to HT.
Harshal Patel also said that Kohli gives space to his bowlers and don’t come hard at them knowing that there will be some days when batsmen will get at the top and dictate terms. He said that Kohli discusses just ways on how to stay on the plans and best possible mindset after a bad game and it gives huge confidence to bowler like him.
“He gives you the space to do your thing. Even if you don’t execute at times he understands better than anybody that on a batter’s day, if they get hold of a bowler, you are going to go for runs. Whenever we are unable to execute, or we stray from our plans, when we sit for the review the only talk is about what do we do to stay on the path, how do we stay in the mindset to execute more often than not. We don’t let any other noise come into that environment,” Patel added.
Notably, Harshal Patel was the leading wicket-taker in the IPL 2021 till the halfway stage before the Covid-19 outbreak in bubbles led to the postponement of the tournament. But, at the same time, he conceded runs with an economy rate of 9.17 runs per over and once he was plundered for 37 runs in an over by Ravindra Jadeja.