Virat Kohli’s childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma feels that the former India captain has to play his natural game to find his rhythm back. Kohli has been going through a lean patch as his last international century came way back in 2019. The batting maestro has scored the fifties at regular intervals during this phase but he has not been able to convert that into a three-digit score.
The former Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper also had an underwhelming IPL this season as he scored 341 runs in 16 innings which included two half-centuries.
Rajkumar admitted it has been a long time since Kohli scored a century but he is hoping that the drought will end soon.
“Currently it is required for Virat to play his natural game and make a big score, which he is searching for a long time. I have full hope that he will do that soon because it has been a long time,” Rajkumar told India News.
The 57-year-old, who has worked closely with Kohli during his childhood days, admitted that the batting maestro’s conversion rate has dropped miserably in the last couple of years.
“It has not been seen often in Virat’s entire career that he has such a long lean patch, in terms of triple figures, he has definitely scored runs otherwise, but his conversion rate was exceptional earlier, once he used to reach 30-35 runs, everyone used to believe that he will score big, a hundred will definitely be scored but lately that has not happened,” he said.
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Kohli will next play against England in the postponed fifth Test match of the series which was played last year when he himself was the captain of the team.
Rajkumar talked about the on-field rivalry between Kohli and former England skipper Joe Root on scoring more runs than each other. The 57-year-old said that players do think about the rivalry in the free time but they should forget about it when they enter the field.
“Both are fantastic players. A healthy rivalry is always there at the back of the mind, that he has come close to you or has gone ahead of you, or you are close to the other person’s record. You definitely think about it while sitting in the hotel or the dressing room”
“You forget this rivalry when you go across the boundary line, then you only wait for the next ball and you have to see how to score your runs. You don’t get Joe Root or anyone else in your mind,” he said.