'Don't Change...'- Ravi Shastri's Advice To Virat Kohli Regarding His T20 Batting
Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli [Image- Twitter]
Former Team India head coach Ravi Shastri has urged Virat Kohli to build on the tempo he has gained while batting in order to address his low strike-rate issue during the middle overs.
Shastri's comments come after Kohli played an underwhelming knock in his last outing, which contributed towards a heavy defeat for the Royal Challengers Bangalore at the hands of the Delhi Capitals.
Virat has been in brilliant form this season. But, there has been an alarming trend in nearly all of his innings.
Kohli relishes pace, and so, he starts in cruise mode in the powerplay but as soon as the spinners come into the attack, his scoring gets reduced to 1s and 2s.
Another worrying aspect is unlike the past, Kohli is no longer converting his 50s into an 80 or a 90, which makes his middle overs struggles look even worse.
Speaking to ESPNCricinfo, Shastri urged his former partner-in-crime to build on the tempo that he has gained at the start of his innings rather than squandering it by thinking about external factors.
Here's what Ravi Shastri said:
"Once you gain tempo, don’t change, don’t worry about the others. That will be my message to Virat (Kohli). Let them do their job. In a T20 game, you don’t need that many batsmen. If you are hot keep that going. Prime example of that was Phil Salt. You saw the way he batted. Once he got into the groove, he didn’t let go,”
"It took the pressure off the other batsmen. Having said, even they were hammering whether it was (Mitchell) Marsh or (Rilee) Roussow. So that is something that could be there from Virat’s point of view. If he gets going, don’t change your tempo, try and up the ante,” added Shastri.
Kohli will look to shrug off the blip on Tuesday night when he comes up against a bowling attack, he smashed into the pieces to launch his IPL 2023 campaign a few weeks ago.
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