Royal Challengers Bangalore's (RCB) Virat Kohli is marred by a form slump as he hasn't looked in his elements in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL). While many from the cricket fraternity are raising questions on his batting, many came in Virat's support.
Meanwhile, South Africa's women's cricket great Dane Van Niekerk has thrown her weight behind the embattled Kohli as she posted an emotional message for RCB star batter on her Twitter handle where she asked people to not discredit Kohli's great body of work over the past decade due to his current poor form.
"Stop looking for reasons to discredit what @imVkohli has done for the game of cricket!! On the up, over extra and made it look easy.. a legend will always be a legend.. accept it! A tournament, a season does not define over a decade of consistent performances!" Dane tweeted.
Virat played an innings of substance against the Gujarat Titans (GT) where he scored his first half-century (58 off 53) of the season but questions were raise on his strike rate.
He followed it up with yet another slow knock of 30 runs from 33 deliveries as RCB failed to get off to a quick start against CSK in IPL 2022. But the innings was given a strong foundation by the experienced pair of Kohli and captain Faf du Plessis (38), as the duo put on a 62-run stand for the opening wicket. Mahipal Lomror and Dinesh Karthik provided some late fireworks to take the team to a decent total of 173 runs and skittled CSK to 160/8 registering a 13-run victory on Wednesday (May 4).
The 33-year-old Kohli has had a difficult time with the bat, with his last international century coming in 2019. This bad run has coincided with him quitting captaincy in T20Is and Tests and being replaced in one-day internationals.
But the last two outings have given millions of the fans a lot of hope that the flamboyant cricketer is slowly and steadily getting back to his dominant best. The Faf-led side is 4th on the points table with 6 wins in 11 matches and will next take on Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday (May 08) at the Brabourne Stadium.
