Virat Kohli has endured a nightmare in the ongoing IPL 2022 season so far, averaging just 16 in nine matches played.
Virat Kohli is having a tough time in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022. The former Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) captain’s last five scores are 9, 0, 0, 12, 1 and is yet to get a half-century. His poor performances are not only a cause of concern for RCB but also for the Indian cricket team, which will play the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia in six months time. Kohli is in the leanest phase of his international career too. Now, 2011 World Cup winner Yuvraj Singh has a word of advice for Kohli.
After four successive years of domination from 2016 to 2019, the former India captain ended the calendar years with averages of 75.93, 75.64, 55.08, 68.00 respectively, Kohli’s Test career has hit a wall. In 2020 and 2021, Kohli averaged 19.33 and 28.21 respectively in three and 11 Tests. In three Tests in 2022 so far, Kohli has averaged 37.80.
From August 2017 to January 2019, Kohli hit 17 centuries across formats. From December, 2019 he has got zero tons.
“I think he needs to go back to his younger days and think of how he was as a person. He was a free person, chilled out person. He needs to look back at those days. Obviously, he is also not happy, and people aren’t too, because we have seen him setting bigger benchmarks, scoring hundreds after hundreds. But this happens to the best players,” Yuvraj said in the first of a two-part interview series on ‘Home of Heroes’, Sports18’s newest offering.
“Virat needs to become a free-flowing personality again. If he can change himself and be like how he was earlier that will reflect in his game. He has proved himself to be the best of this era and believes in a strong work ethic and that has brought the best out of him over the years.”