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Royal Challengers Bangalore's (RCB) stalwart Virat Kohli is all set to entertain his fans with his stunning batting in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 which will get underway from March 22. But India's spin legend Harbhajan Singh has drawn RCB's fans attention towards something which can't be overlooked.
Kohli's not so impressive track record at MA Chidambaram stadium in IPL
Even though Kohli is a dominant force in the IPL, consistently outperforming others with a staggering 7263 runs from 237 matches, including six centuries and a strike rate of 130, his prowess seems to wane at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai when playing for the RCB. At this venue, Kohli's performance drops, with an average score of 30 and a strike rate of 111. Looking at his track record at the venue, the former Indian off-spinner Harbhajan highlighted the need for Kohli to step up his game when RCB will lock horns against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the IPL 2024 opener at Chepauk on March 22.
"The greatness of Virat has been reduced in terms of his overall performance at that venue. It is a tricky venue to bat, especially as an opening batsman against a sort of weird tennis ball type bounce. They've (CSK) got the great (Ravindra) Jadeja bowling stump to stump. He'll get the oddball to turn and then the oddball stay low. It's really tricky," Harbhajan told Star Sports.
Indeed, Kohli has been sent back to the pavilion during the Powerplays in three of his past five innings against CSK. Harbhajan emphasised that the celebrated batsman must devise strategies to prolong his stay at the wicket.
"If he's actually prepared to bat about 20 overs, then he can put together a match-winning performance because two hundreds at the accessible Chinnaswamy do not necessarily guarantee the same at Chepauk," he further said.
Kohli has not hit a century at the Chepauk in IPL games, and his record against CSK is average. The 35-year-old has amassed 985 runs in 30 matches against them, with his top score being 90. Harbhajan, who once played for CSK, believes that Kohli must return to his peak form from 2016 if RCB is to seriously contend for the much-coveted IPL championship.
"It's important for him to have a season like 2016, because if Virat goes on to score runs, the team will go forward. I don't know if they will go on to win the cup or not. But with the brilliant individuals they have in their team - Virat, (Glenn) Maxwell, (Cameron) Green, and a few more like Patidar - I believe they have a lot of good batting and everyone wants Virat to have a repeat of 2016," he added.
During the 2016 IPL season, Kohli delivered an extraordinary performance by accumulating 973 runs in 16 matches, which included four centuries and seven half-centuries. This outstanding achievement remains the record for the highest number of runs scored in a single IPL season.
A look at RCB's IPL 2024 schedule for the first 21 matches:
| RCB vs | Teams | Dates | Venues |
| RCB vs | CSK | March 22 | Chennai |
| RCB vs | PBKS | March 25 | Bengaluru |
| RCB vs | KKR | March 29 | Bengaluru |
| RCB vs | LSG | April 2 | Bengaluru |
| RCB vs | RR | April 6 | Jaipur |
RCB's full schedule for IPL 2024:
Faf du Plessis (c), Glenn Maxwell, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Anuj Rawat, Dinesh Karthik, Suyash Prabhudessai, Will Jacks, Mahipal Lomror, Karn Sharma, Manoj Bhandage, Mayank Dagar, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Reece Topley, Himanshu Sharma, Rajan Kumar, Cameron Green, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Tom Curran, Lockie Ferguson, Swapnil Singh, Saurav Chauhan.
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