Sunil Gavaskar slams Virat Kohli for his shot selection in the IPL

05/06/2017

Sunil Gavaskar was irked by Virat Kohli's performance in the past few matches and made his disappointment evident by criticising the RCB skipper's shot selection and blaming him for playing 'immature shots'. Kohli has scored just 245 runs in his eight matches in the IPL so far this season.

Virat Kohli who had earned the title of Mr. Consistent for Team India, as well as Royal Challengers Bangalore, seems to be going through a rough patch this season. The RCB side once again collapsed at a score of 119 against the Kings XI Punjab failing to chase a lowly score of 138.

The RCB side suffered their 5th straight loss and skipper Kohli contributed just 6 runs to his team's effort. Kohli has scored above 20 only once in the 5 losses that the side has suffered highlighting the poor form the Delhi batsman finds himself in.

Sunil Gavaskar voiced his disappointed with the way the RCB skipper tried to play his innings rather than the runs he has scored.

“First thing he should be doing is look himself in the mirror. The shot he played (against KXIP) wasn’t exactly a great shot. The shot he played at Eden Gardens (against KKR) wasn’t a great shot,” Gavaskar said in the post-match analysis of the RCB-KXIP match.

Kohli displayed some poor cricketing skills when he tried to charge down the pitch to an in-swinging Sandeep Sharma delivery and missed it completely which sent his leg-stump tumbling. Against the Kolkata Knight Riders, the RCB skipper was dismissed without opening his account.

Virat Kohli has failed to anchor the RCB innings throughout this tournament which he is known for and Gavaskar was quick to point out Kohli's lack of responsibility.

“He (Kohli) has got to say to himself that he is the captain. He has got to stay there. He is not in form so stay there and he should work himself with proper cricketing shots then widen the scope of the shots,” Gavaskar said.

The RCB side is already out of the playoffs spot contention and seem to be sulking at the bottom of the table with 5 points from their 12 matches. The 26-year-old's performance has been in stark contrast to his performance in the last edition of IPL where he powered his team to the finals of the tournament almost single-handedly. He has managed to score three half-centuries this season but it will be considered as a below par outing for the explosive and consistent batsman.

“Apart from (Chris) Gayle, who was deceived by late movement, Virat (Kohli) went for that big six shot, AB de Villiers went for that big six shot, Mandeep Singh, having settled down, went for the big shot. So, there you are,” he explained.

“Your main batsmen went for the glamour shots instead of looking to play proper cricketing shots. Get the boundary. Between a four and a six the difference is two runs. Because you hit the ball in the air (for six), the risk percentage goes up to a 100.”

Sunil Gavaskar slams Virat Kohli for his shot selection in the IPL

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