Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) were off to a poor start to their Vivo IPL 2016 campaign as they languished at seventh place mid-season. RCB were mostly let down by their bowling lineup and the dismal start by star hitter Chris Gayle. But Virat Kohli’s team embarked on a four-match win streak and managed to secure 12 points from the last 14 points to secure a play-offs spot. It took superhuman performances from Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers to propel an underachieving squad into title contenders. Kohli has hit four centuries already in this year’s IPL, with him being the only player to hit that many tons in a single IPL season.
He’s been in such tremendous form that even the rival fans have found it hard to not cheer for Kohli and his men. The RCB star also happens to be the first batsman to score 900+ runs in a single IPL season. He has been so good that he is constantly compared to legendary Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar.
As the season wore, Kohli’s performances overshadowed his teammate’s even more so. So much so, that RCB’s wicketkeeper-batsman Kannur Lokesh Rahul feels privileged in sharing a dressing room with his captain.
The elegant batsman has been the crisis man for the team. Whenever the top order has failed to deliver, RCB have counted on his brilliance like yesterday when Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers were dismissed early. It was the Rahul-Kohli partnership that saved the day for the Bangalore team.
Also read: IPL 2016 Match 56: Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Delhi Daredevils by 6 wickets.
It is common for the non-strikers to see Kohli smash the ball each match and Rahul told iplt20.com: "The way he is batting or the way he has been doing in international cricket and in the IPL is inspiring for anybody watching. He makes batting look so easy,"
Rahul has been in tremendous form this season
"At the moment you can say that he has been in good form, but since he started in international cricket he has been in good form and I just can't remember when he has been out of form," Rahul added.
The Karnataka-born batsman also said that he is privileged to share the dressing room with Virat at both RCB and the Indian National Team. He says that he is trying to implement what he is learning from his captain.
"So just to have somebody like him in the dressing room, to chat with him and see how he works around his cricket, and (to observe how he) gets better and better every day.
"It is absolutely a privilege to be in the RCB dressing room or to share the dressing room with him in the Indian team. Whatever little I can learn from Virat I am trying to do it every day," Rahul said.
Having hit more than 900 runs, it remains to be seen if Team India’s test cricket captain can continue his sublime form and breach the 1000 runs mark, which before this season, no batsman would have ever thought to breach.
