‘You’ll Be Lucky Once, Or Twice, Not Always’ – Kris Srikkanth On Virat Kohli
Kris Srikkanth suggests Virat Kohli's batting style should be natural instead of aggressive
Kris Srikkanth, the iconic Indian cricketer, suggests that Virat Kohli should adhere to his natural playing style rather than adopting an aggressive approach right from the start.
Kohli’s batting style in the T20I series against Afghanistan left fans and experts surprised. After sitting out the first game for personal reasons, he came back strong, smashing 29 runs off just 16 balls in the second match with a couple of well-executed slog sweeps.
However, in the next match, he scored the first golden duck of his T20I career after he was caught at mid-off after miscuing the very first ball.
“Each player has his own game. Everybody should first follow their game. If you tell Yashasvi Jaiswal to take his time and play, it’s not right. Players like him and ‘Cheeka’, you can’t tell them to take their time,” Kris Srikkanth said in his YouTube show.
Srikkanth pointed to Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal as players who excel with an aggressive batting style from the start, advising Kohli to stick to his natural game.
“Rohit Sharma is capable of doing it. Virat Kohli should play his natural game. He likes taking his time. He is not worried about hitting sixes. He is capable of accelerating in the end, hit sixes in the end. We saw the Pakistan game in Melbourne, the way he built it up and won it for us.”
“So, like you said, the strike rate and all that should be on the back of the mind. If you run after it desperately, it won’t work. If you start swinging from the word go… this is international cricket, you will be lucky to connect once or twice, not always.”
“Virat Kohli should follow his principles of the game. How has he succeeded in international cricket? He has followed his style and done it. I think everybody should stick to their strengths,” he concluded.
Virat Kohli, the top run-scorer in T20I cricket with 4037 runs from 117 matches at an average of 51.75 and a strike rate of 138.15, made a conscious decision to escalate his aggression in the T20I series against Afghanistan.
