Virat Kohli’s Childhood Coach Slams Critics Of RCB Star’s Strike Rate In IPL

Despite RCB leading the Orange Cap race in IPL 2024, there has been some criticism over his strike rate. His childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma, however, has come to his defence.

Virat Kohli is leading the race for the Orange Cap in IPL 2024. The Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) star has so far played 5 innings and has accumulated 316 runs in them. His dominance can be gauged from the fact that the second-highest leading run-getter in the season so far, Gujarat Titans' (GT) Sai Sudharsan, has 191 runs to his name. Despite Kohli's sublime form with the bat, RCB find themselves languishing at the ninth place of the ten-team table with just a solitary win after 5 matches.

With RCB not being able to crack the winning formula as often as they would have liked, there has been some criticism of Kohli's strike rate. A section of the fans and cricket experts alike were quick to point out that the hundred that Kohli had made in RCB's match against Rajasthan Royals (RR) was the slowest in IPL history. With RCB succumbing to a defeat in that fixture, there were several fans who pointed out that Kohli could have perhaps played a more aggressive brand of cricket.

Notably, the 35-year-old remained unbeaten on 113 off 72 as RCB posted 183/2 which was not enough at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur with RR managing to chase it down with 5 balls to go. RR's Jos Buttler scored 100 off 58 as the inaugural champions continued their unbeaten run in the competition.

However, Kohli's childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma has slammed those criticising Kohli's strike rate.

"Some people who are saying this nonsense, I think they don't know the context of the match, what the situation of the match was and how the team was struggling," Sharma said on India News.

"They speak only to be in the news. Just because whenever you speak about a normal player, it does not bring you in the news headlines, but if you speak about a player like Virat Kohli, it brings you in the news headlines," he added.

Running An Agenda Against Virat Kohli: Coach Rajkumar Sharma

When Sharma was asked to identify who are these people who are criticising Kohli, he said that there is a lobby in place who does this.

"Look, this is a lobby which is running an agenda. They're just pushing an agenda, and as fans or true analysts we don't care about their agenda. See, the king will always be the king. A person who knows even the 'C' of cricket would never do such nonsense."