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Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) skipper Rajat Patidar has been leading from the front. Patidar has bludgeoned bowling attacks, instilled fear in spinners, boosting team’s run rate in the middle overs. His approach has earned praise from Virat Kohli. The opener revealed that RCB batters have their own KPIs and Patidar’s is to assess the situation but he ends of assessing the bowler’s heart rate.
"We have our KPIs as a batting unit and it says Rajat to go in and assess the situation. I always tell him, you're probably looking to assess the bowler's heart rate rather than the situation... I mean, incredible clarity," the former India skipper said.
Patidar walked in to bat in the eighth over and joined Kohli. While Kohli missed his fifty and got dismissed by Avesh Khan, Patidar released pressure with a 13-ball 27 cameo, featuring three sixes and a four. He took RCB to doorstep of victory before losing his wicket to Prince Yadav.
A six in every 5 balls for Patidar, the orange cap contender
While Kohli has the orange cap, Patidar is a contender too. From five innings, he has managed to score 222 runs, six shy of Kohli's tally. He averages 55.50 and strikes at a highly impressive strike rate of 213.46. Only Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has a better strike rate with batters among 150-plus runs this season. He has hit 21 sixes already, better than Sooryavanshi's tally of 18. To put things into perspective, Patidar has hit a six every five balls in the ongoing season.
Kohli points at RCB’s batting depth
Kohli went on to laud the management for defining clear roles for players. Also, he pointed out that Krunal Pandya is yet to showcase his talent with the bat. He has batted just once in five innings so far.
“The way our management has stacked up the team allows us to play in a certain way. I have to adapt my role accordingly. It allows me to play a certain way up front with Salty (Phil Salt), so we pass on the baton nicely,” Kohli said.
"The freedom of having Romario (Shepherd) and Tim (David)... KP (Krunal Pandya) hasn't even batted yet. We're sitting on a batting unit that's explosive and getting the job done. It looks intimidating if you have Romario and Tim walking in even after five down. These guys can get you 50 runs in four overs... that gives all of us a lot of freedom,” he added.
Defending champions RCB have climbed to the top of the points table. They face Delhi Capitals (DC) in their next clash at home on April 18.
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