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Will Royal Challengers Bangalore move away from Virat Kohli in IPL 2021? Katich has answer!

Will Royal Challengers Bangalore move away from Virat Kohli in IPL 2021? Katich has answer! RCB were pushed out of the tournament after their Eliminator defeat to Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Will Royal Challengers Bangalore move away from Virat Kohli in IPL 2021

Dubai, November 7: As Royal Challengers Bangalore's yet another IPL campaign ended in heart-break, the questions over the future of Virat Kohli have gathered momentum. They were not entirely misplaced as Kohli has not been able to land RCB a silverware in the eight years at the helm.

The latest setback was RCB's ouster by Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL 2020 Eliminator on Thursday (November 6). So, have seen the last of Kohli as RCB captain? However, Royal Challengers head coach Simon Katich defended Kohli and said the team has high respect for the skipper.

Kohli made 466 runs in this year's IPL from 15 matches at an average of 42.36 but his strike-rate of 121 went below par.

"From the batting perspective, we did have consistent opening partnerships between Finch and Padikkal, that was an area we needed to address and we got that. But as a by-product of that, Virat came into the innings outside the Power Play and that is not an easy time to start your innings, that was a challenge for him.

"There were a number of times where the game situation didn't help. He looked well on top of the bowling but we kept losing wickets at crucial times, that would just slow his progress. So, you can't judge him purely by the numbers. There were a number of games where he looked right at ease but unfortunately got stalled at times," said Katich in a virtual press meet.

So, how does he rate Kohli the captain?

"What we saw - we've seen someone who is very invested in this group, spend a lot of time with the younger players, particularly we paired him up with Padikkal as a mentor. We saw his growth through the tournament, batting with Kohli is very valuable for his growth.

"That's a side a lot of people don't see Virat. The other thing we saw which was very visible on field is, we've got a leader that, no matter what the game situation is, he gets the other 10 guys to follow him and stay in the contest.

"One thing we're proud of is we hung in the contest and fought right till the end. Even last night, we didn't have enough runs on the board but we fought till the end. That's something we're proud of and Virat can take a lot of credit for that," added Katich.

The other point was the colourless outings of Australian Aaron Finch, who just managed a fifty in 12 matches. Katich backed him.

"We obviously tried to address the over-reliance on Virat and AB de Villiers this season by bringing in Finch into the mix. We knew we would play young Padikkal, he showed ability at the top of the order and we wanted to surround him with three world-class players. Unfortunately, Finch did not have as strong a season we hoped for but that can happen sometimes in T20, but he had a great presence around the group, in the runs aspect, we did not get the output we were looking for."

Story first published: Saturday, November 7, 2020, 20:03 [IST]
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