Published: Mar 18, 2025, 06:28 PM (IST)
Edited: Mar 18, 2025, 06:28 PM (IST)
Legendary South Africa batter AB de Villiers believes that Virat Kohli should focus on playing smart cricket and continue controlling the game this IPL season with the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) as one of the franchise’s newer additions, Phil Salt is expected to ease the pressure on the India star batter.
Despite being one of RCB’s most consistent performers, Kohli’s strike rate was a topic of discussion past 2 seasons. However, with the Bengaluru-based franchise acquiring the English duo of Salt and Liam Livingstone, along with Australia’s Tim David and West Indies’ Romario Shepherd, de Villiers believes that Kohli will be able to play with more freedom in the upcoming season.
“Virat seems to be enjoying his cricket. I don’t think he’s going to have to up his strike rate batting with Phil Salt,” de Villiers said on JioStar Press Room on Tuesday.
“Salt is one of the most attacking players we’ve ever seen. I think he’s going to take a lot of pressure off Virat. Virat needs to continue what he’s been doing for so many years…control the game, play smart cricket. He’s got the best instinct of any player out there. He knows when to up the ante a bit and when to lower it,” de Villiers added.
De Villiers, who was a teammate of Kohli at RCB for 11 seasons, stated that the India batter’s job this season will be to ensure that there are no batting collapses.
“Virat needs to be the captain of the batting department in this tournament and really just keep things together, play smart cricket to make sure they don’t find those collapses in the batting order,” de Villiers said.
“There’s no doubt some of the outside noise has maybe influenced him a bit. He’s only human, he’s definitely got those doubts in his head. But the one thing about Virat is that he’s always had the ability to, when it matters most, when he crosses that line for his team, block everything out and it’s business time,” de Villiers added.
