Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) former skipper Virat Kohli has not been able to perform to the best of his abilities in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022. Despite RCB winning three out of their five games so far, former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar believes that in IPL, everyone can be dropped as it is a performance based model.
“It's a performance based IPL franchise model. No one will be spared, not even Virat Kohli. Even he can be dropped if he does not perform. Some of the things I can't even say now. Not one but there are 10,000 things going on in his head. He is a good person, a good player and great cricketer, but I want him to just focus, on one thing at a time. Consider yourself as a ordinary player, pick up your bat and just play. People have already started pointing fingers at Virat Kohli and it's dangerous,” Akhtar said ahead of RCB’s clash against Delhi Capitals (DC).
So far, Kohli has scored 107 runs at an average of 26.75. He is yet to score a half-century and registered two single-digit scores. He came close to scoring a half-century against Mumbai Indians (MI) but was denied due to controversial umpiring decision. Also, he started the season well with an unbeaten 41 against Punjab Kings (PBKS) in RCB's season opener.
This is Kohli’s first season after he gave up captaincy in all formats of the game. Under Faf du Plessis, he has been batting at no.3 as Anuj Rawat has opened the innings with former Proteas skipper. Earlier, many had predicted that Kohli will have a breakthrough IPL season after the burden of captaincy was lifted off his shoulders.
In the last three seasons, he has scored over 400 runs in each season. His best season came in 2016 when he scored record-breaking 973 runs from 16 games at an outstanding average of 81.08 including four centuries and seven half-centuries. In the 2016 edition, he also led RCB to the final where they were beaten by Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH).
