Virat Kohli might have not been able to score a century in over two years now but that doesn’t mean he’s out of form. The majority of times he’s batted across formats, Kohli has looked quite confident and battled testing phases successfully.
However, he hasn’t been able to make those starts count, being regularly dismissed against the run of play. His teammates including Rohit Sharma have wrapped up a defensive shield around him during this slump and even overseas stars have been nothing but supportive.
Afghanistan legspinner Rashid Khan doesn’t think that Kohli is out of form. Instead he thinks that the people have quite high expectations of the Indian that he’ll score a century every two matches.
“Whenever he plays, his shots never indicate that Kohli is out of form. In my view, he’s not out of form. See the expectations are quite high. People expect that after every two matches, Kohli will score a hundred. If you look at his Test innings, he has battled tough moments and then he has scored 50s, 60s and 70s before being dismissed,” Rashid told Sawera Pasha on her YouTube channel.
“People would call any normal batter (under these circumstances) to be in the form of his life. He has raised expectation to such a level that people expect him to score a century,” he added.
Rashid said he has spoken to Kohli and that the 33-year-old isn’t worried about what others think of him.
“I spoke to him during IPL. He’s never been the one to be concerned about what others think of him. It’s an example for us the way he prepares. The way he prepares, we are motivated and train harder,” Rashid said.
Rashid then recalled an incident during a net session while playing in the Indian Premier League.
“During IPL, I saw him during nets. I started noticing the time he would spend training. He batted for 2.5-3 hours. I was shocked. We had wrapped our practice session but he was still there and batting. He then scored runs against us as well,” he said.
The legspinner further added that the phase Kohli is going through is something that players encounter at some point in their careers.
“There comes a time in a player’s career when things don’t turn out the way you want them to be. So, as a cricket fan, we all want him to play well and score big. He’s in form. The only thing is expectations from him are quite high and with time he’ll start scoring again,” he said.
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