IPL 2023: Virat Kohli responds to Simon Doull's criticism

Earlier, Simon Doull had criticised RCB star Virat Kohli for his strike-rate.

Royal Challengers Bangalore opening batsman Virat Kohli had a decent run in the IPL 2023 so far. He has scored fifty plus scores twice in this season of the Indian Premier League. Virat Kohli after a poor IPL 2022, has brought some stability to RCB's top order batting with captain Faf du Plessis. Yet he was criticised for his approach in a few of his innings. RCB lost to Lucknow in a crunch situation. In a last ball thriller, Lucknow chased down RCB's total of 212 with a wicket in hand. This made few people criticise Virat's approach to batting when he was closing in for his Half century. Now, Virat has responded to that criticism.

Virat Kohli responds to criticism he faced

Former RCB Captain, Virat played an inning of 61 runs in 44 balls with 4 fours and 4 sixes against Lucknow Super Giants. He slowed down a bit when he was closing in for his fifty in that game. He took 10 balls to reach 50 from a score of 42. After this, Simon Doull and Harsha Bhogle indirectly raised questions about his approach. Now Virat has responded to a question on his anchor role saying, "Yeah for sure, I completely agree with that. There are many people who because they have not been in that situation themselves, look at the game differently".

"Suddenly when the powerplay is done, they will be like 'oh, they have started rotating the strike'. When you haven't lost a wicket in the powerplay, usually the best player comes on to bowl, you are trying to figure out what to do against him in the first two overs, so that you can get big ones in the last two overs of that guy and then rest of the innings becomes much easier.", Kohli added.

Experts wanted to know about how batsmen often slow down in their innings.

This is what Simon Doull had said

Commentator Simon Doull was also trolled badly by Virat Kohli fans on social media. Doull has always been critical of the approach where players slow down while closing in for a milestone. Doull also faced flack over his comment on Babar Azam in the Pakistan Super League recently. On Virat's inning Simon Doull said, "Virat Kohli started off like a train. He was hammering shots, but from 42 to 40 he took 10 balls. He is concerned about his personal milestone. I do not think there is room for that in this game anymore”.

Former RCB Captain Virat Kohli did struggle against Lucknow’s spinners. He was not able to carry the momentum against Krunal Pandya and Ravi Bishnoi. Virat scored his third fifty in the IPL 2023 on Saturday against Delhi Capitals. He scored 50 runs in 34 balls against Delhi at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.