Virat Kohli fans, either turn away or be prepared to learn a shocking truth about your idol. The claims of “selfish” and “runs and average obsessed” against the name of Kohli by a section of online users aren’t baseless or invalid totally.
It has now come to light that Virat Kohli – the great Virat Kohli, who is touted as the greatest T20I and IPL batsman of all-time by his fans – likes to indeed take a single on the last ball of the over a lot more than one would imagine.
The improvements in the data and analytics field have been revealing, gradually over the years, that the style and template of Kohli’s batting in T20 cricket, especially when batting first, is outdated, and in fact could be counter-productive at times.
While Virat Kohl is the leading run-scorer in IPL and T20I history, it’s also the truth that his entire career has coincided with the rise of the T20 format, and that allowed him to still play with the approach that players use in ODI cricket.
Virat Kohli takes a single on the last ball of the over 50 percent times
Twitter user @JackHope0, who also runs a a cricket podcast named Strike Rate: The Cricket Analytics Podcast, produced an interesting bit of data and information that has left everyone astounded.
While we already have known Kohli’s proclivity to rotate the strike often, it had never been realised truly how often does he take a single on the last ball of the over to keep the strike for the next over.
Where many proper T20 match-winners would aim to crack the last ball of the over for a boundary, Kohli takes a single 50 percent of the times to keep the strike for the next over.
Here check out the analysis and information-finding done by Jack Hope on this topic.
Jack Hope tweeted: “This is what Virat Kohli has done versus each ball in the over, in T20 cricket over the last 3 years.
It’s really interesting how his approach totally changes from the 1st ball (where he attacks) to the 6th ball (where he is desperate to keep the strike).”
This further only strengthens the claims of the T20 purists that Virat Kohli indeed plays match-losing knocks at times when he bats for long in his typical approach, and his choice to rotate the strike instead of going harder at the bowlers further hurts his own team.
Also Read: KL Rahul Will Not Be Picked For T20 World Cup After Poor Performances In IPL 2024
