Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) analyst Freddie Wilde has said that talismanic batter Virat Kohli has the ability to spot things that even data doesn't show. Wilde said that the 36-year-old did not look into the numbers daily, but contributed with his thoughts during team meetings when he was discussing bowlers and where they would bowl.
Wilde also said Kohli's gut instinct and what the data presented often matched, which was reassuring. Speaking on the For the Love of Cricket podcast to Jos Buttler and Stuart Broad, he said:
"I never worked with him (Kohli) whilst he was captain. My first year at RCB was when we had Faf (du Plessis) as captain. But in terms of his interaction with data, pretty minimal in terms of day-to-day but where he's absolutely brilliant is where we have team meetings, we have batting meetings and in those meetings, quite often I'll lead that by sharing information, go through bowler by bowler, what balls have they got, where do they bowl at different phase of the innings and that's really just a prompter for the discussion between the guys in the room.
"You can see Virat's cricketing brain kick in those moments and his contributions to those meetings are quite excellent. He'll pick up stuff sometimes the data doesn't say, sometimes that it does say. He's not necessarily asking for lots of data, but what is reassuring is his gut instinct quite often you'll then go away at the data and that completely matches up."
With the evolving nature of T20 cricket, the role of data in the format has increasingly gone up. Teams are constantly working with analysts and looking at aspects such as match-ups and other sequences, which could help them gain an upper hand over the opposition.
RCB analyst reveals what happens at auctions and the pressures involved on the big day
Freddie Wilde opened up about what goes on in auctions, saying that while there were pressure moments, teams were coming in with a lot of preparation. Following that preparation, they would back themselves to get the job done on that day.
"You feel the eyes of the room on your table, without a doubt. But I think if you have done your prep well and most teams do now and we are particularly thorough at RCB, you go into it, it is probably a bit like preparing for a big game, you feel you have done your training and at that point you are sort of like you are backing yourself to go over and execute to an extent and we had our plan, we have come up with it and then you kind of just go and do it. But there are pressure moments," he said.
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