Image Credit- BCCI
According to Virat Kohli, the sweep has been a crucial scoring option for him to counter spin, particularly in the middle overs of this IPL.
Kohli relied on the same shot that upset the spin trio of Rashid Khan, Noor Ahmad, and R Sai Kishore of the Gujarat Titans earlier in the season in Ahmedabad, to score runs against wristspinner Rahul Chahar and all-around spinner Liam Livingstone.
In Dharamsala on Thursday, he scored 92 runs off 47 balls at a strike rate of 195.74, with 26 of those runs coming from the slog-sweep and the slog. He had additional scoring opportunities thanks to that shot and its variation. Kohli continued to bat with great conviction after being dropped on 0 and 10, helping Royal Challengers Bengaluru to 241 for 7, which was 60 runs too many for PBKS.
“I’ve brought out the slog-sweep to the spinners (laughs). I just mentally put myself in that situation and I didn’t practice it at all,” Kohli said after winning the Player-of-the-Match award. “I know I can hit it because I’ve hit it a lot in the past. So, I just felt like I need to take a bit more risk and for me that shot was something that I used to hit regularly back in the day. And that’s allowing me to hit off the back foot as well because I’m always looking to expose that side of the field against the spin.
“For me that has been a massive factor in this IPL. So, I think it just takes a bit more conviction and take out that thought that props up: ‘what if you get out’. I’ve been managing to stay ahead of that thought in this IPL and that’s really helped me in the middle overs in this IPL, keeping my strike rate up and keeping the scoring rate going for the team as well.”
With four straight wins thanks to Kohli’s knock, RCB was able to maintain their playoff hopes. After winning their second game of the season and their first at home against PBKS, RCB had fallen into a slump as they dropped their next six games.
They’ve made personnel changes and discovered a winning combination for away and home games. The pivotal moment in their season, according to Kohli, was their one-run loss to the Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens, where Lockie Ferguson was run out on the final ball. RCB came dangerously close to chasing down 223 against one of the tournament’s top teams.
“The only way to go through a long tournament is to be absolutely honest with yourself,” Kohli said. “We were just not good enough in the first half of the tournament. [It’s] precisely why we are in a situation again where so many factors have to go our way. We won the second game of the season and then we had those losses on the trot. A couple of close games but still we were outplayed in most of them.”