'Main Aisa Hairan'- When Rashid Khan Narrated a Shocking Story About Virat Kohli
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India’s run-machine, Virat Kohli endured a tumultuous run of form, which lasted more than 2 years before he scored his maiden T20I century against Afghanistan in the 2022 Asia Cup. Before that, he scored his last century back in 2019 in the pink-ball Test against Bangladesh. There were question marks over his position in the Indian batting line-up.
The 2022 IPL season was also a forgettable one for him. In 16 matches played that season, he could only manage to score 341 runs at an average of 22.73. When you are the highest run-scorer in the tournament’s history, fans would expect more out of you and frustration kept creeping in for the star batter.
However, during the bad times, Kohli never stopped working hard on himself. Afghanistan spinner, Rashid Khan, who played for Gujarat Titans in 2022 IPL season, recalled an incident involving Virat Kohli from 2022 IPL season.
Gujarat Titans were scheduled to play their next game against RCB and Khan was astonished to see how much time Kohli spent in the nets just to get in the right space for the match. Rashid Khan revealed that Virat Kohli batted for two and half hours in the nets.
"During the IPL, we had a match the next day against RCB. In the nets, I was just counting the time Virat was out there. To be honest, he batted for two and half hours. Main aisa hairan hua (I was so shocked). Our nets were finished and still, he was there batting. The next day, he scored around 70 against us. His mindset is very positive," said Rashid Khan.
‘He doesn't appear to be out-of-form at all’- Rashid Khan
The way Virat Kohli was timing the ball the Afghanistan spinner didn’t feel like Virat Kohli was going through a lean patch. Khan went on to praise Kohli highlighting his stellar knocks in Test cricket.
"When he bats, he plays such wonderful shots that to me, he doesn't appear to be out-of-form at all). The expectations are much more. People want him to score a hundred every second game. If you look at his Test match innings, he has got through the tough time, batted well, then somehow he has gotten out for 50 or 60 or 70. If there was any other normal batter then everyone would have said that he is in form but with Virat the expectations are such that they only want centuries," said Khan.
Virat Kohli played a sensational knock of 73 runs the next day against Gujarat Titans.
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