Asia Cup 2022: Virat Kohli should return to his natural game to score runs, says Jayasuriya

Dubai, August 23: A lot of attention will be centered around Virat Kohli during the upcoming Asia Cup 2022 as the star batter has been trying to climb up from a deep abyss.

Since 2019, big scores have eluded Kohli and the fans around the world have been lamenting this decline, with many of them even musing about an end of the career situation.

But former Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya opined that Kohli has enough steam and class in him to turn the things around, possibly in the Asia Cup 2022.

“Not only Kohli, every player has to go through this kind of weak phase in his career. Kohli is a world-class batsman and is expected to end the drought of the century soon. Despite this weak phase, I advise him not to forget his natural game. The Asia Cup starting from August 27 will be interesting,” Jayasuriya said.

The Sri Lankan star did not pick any clear winner for the Asia Cup 2022 and said all the teams are having balanced and strong teams this time.

“India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are all four teams in balance and no single team can be considered as the favourite to become the champion this time. All of them have got lot of match winners,” said Jayasuriya.

The influence of franchise-based league cricket tournaments like Indian Premier League (IPL) and the newly-launched UAE Twenty20 League, South Africa Twenty20 League etc are sounding warning bells for International cricket.

Most of the players are preferring to play leagues instead of their National teams. But Jayasurya, who has recently been appointed as the Sri Lanka Tourism brand ambassador, said it will not affect the popularity of international cricket.

An explosive batsman in his time Jayasuriya, who has played 586 international matches for Sri Lanka, said: “The increasing influence of league tournaments in cricket is not a matter of concern.

Any cricket board which does not want their cricketer to play in this league tournament will not give them a no objection certificate (NOC). The T20 leagues are unlikely to affect the popularity of Tests and ODIs. I am confident that the popularity of Test cricket in particular will remain the same in the future.”