Former India captain and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) talisman Virat Kohli lost his wicket for a golden duck against Rajasthan Royals (RR) on Sunday. He was outsmarted by New Zealand fast bowler Trent Boult and was eventually declared LBW by the on-field umpire.
Virat Kohli, who swapped captaincy duties with Faf du Plessis in the game, took a strike on the first delivery of the contest and was back in the pavilion without troubling the scorers as he had no answer to Trent Boult's accuracy and movement.
However, a shocking stat regarding his golden duck began circulating on social media. Virat Kohli's vast legion of fans revealed it was the third time he was out for such a score on 23rd April.
In his previous three outings for Royal Challengers Bangalore on the said date, Virat Kohli lost his wicket for zero, and that too on ball one.
The first instance of Virat Kohli getting out on a golden duck was on 23rd April 2017 when Australian pacer Nathan Coulter-Nile sent him packing against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
Virat Kohli's dismissal on a golden duck for the second time was last year when South African Marco Jansen got his wicket against the Sunrisers Hyderabad.
While Virat Kohli's supporters urged RCB not to schedule matches on 23rd April as the date wasn't auspicious for Virat Kohli, others labeled it “horrible” for Team India's premier batter.
Virat Kohli's IPL scores on April 23 since 2017 :
23rd April, 2017 – 0(1)
23rd April, 2022 – 0(1)
23rd April, 2023 – 0(1)— Raja Sekhar Yadav (@cricketwithraju) April 23, 2023
April 23 and #rcb clearly don't gel well, also is it the green 🤔 @RCBTweets
— SG (@Slyg_byronic) April 23, 2023
Suspend this green jersey forever if it's going against King Kohli's form, he was dismissed off a golden duck in it last season as well. And stop having Bangalore's matches on April 23 now. Enough is enough! 🛑 #IPL2023 pic.twitter.com/U8LNkXi8NW
— Farid Khan (@_FaridKhan) April 23, 2023
Despite failing to add to his tally of runs against the Rajasthan Royals, Virat remained the highest run-getter in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL). With 6,903 runs in the cash-rich league, Virat Kohli only needs 97 runs to become the first batter to score 7,000 runs in the tournament, which began in 2008.
In addition, the former RCB captain holds multiple other records in the IPL, including the most runs (973) and centuries (4) in a single edition of the competition.
Earlier this season, the Delhi-born batter became the first captain to score 6,500 runs in the tournament following his fifty against Punjab Kings on Thursday. Virat Kohli took 186 knocks to reach the milestone.
Additionally, he joined David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan as the only players to smash 600 boundaries in the richest T20 competition on the planet.
Virat Kohli has captained the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the last few games as regular skipper Faf du Plessis has been nursing a rib problem.
“They informed me last time saying I might have to captain a couple of games, nothing I'm not used to doing,” Virat Kohli said at the toss against RR during the weekend.
“So, I'm happy to step in, ready to continue from whatever Faf has been doing. The team has responded well, we are playing with a lot of energy and that showed in the last game.”
Virat Kohli is currently the fourth-highest run-getter in IPL 2023, scoring 279 runs for the RCB in seven matches. Faf du Plessis, Devon Conway, and David Warner are ahead of him with 405, 314, and 285 runs, respectively.
Meanwhile, Australian legend Ricky Ponting shared his thoughts on Virat Kohli's comparison with Sachin Tendulkar.
The ex-Australia captain said it wouldn't be a fair comparison between Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar at this stage. Instead, he would like to wait for Virat Kohli's career to get over to share his opinion on who he thought was a better batter.
“I've said forever, Sachin's technically the best batter that I've ever seen, and played with or against. Whatever plan that we came up with as a bowling group, he found a way to combat it, whether it was in India or Australia,” Ricky Ponting said on the ICC Review.
“It's hard to rank and judge players as everyone is different and everyone plays the game differently. But certainly through the generation that I played, he was technically the best player that I saw,” the two-time ICC ODI World Cup-winning captain added.
“Trying to compare the times and I know Virat played a little bit in the back end of when Sachin played, but it is a bit of a different game now. There's different rules, for instance, around 50-over cricket, with less fielders outside the circle, two new balls, it makes it a lot easier now for batting than probably ever before,” Ricky Ponting noted.
“There's no doubt that the bats have got better. Field restrictions and new balls is a big part of it as well. When Sachin was playing ODIs, the ball at the end of a 50-over game was very hard to see. It was very soft. It was very hard to hit, it reverse swung. You don't see that at all in the modern 50-over game,” he opined.
“Virat's got all that (time) ahead of him just yet. He's an unbelievably good player, there's no doubt about that. He's got over 70-odd international hundreds now. Sachin made a 100 (centuries), didn't he? Let's wait until Virat's career's over and then I think it'll be a much fairer comparison,” Ricky Ponting elaborated.
Ricky Ponting believes Sachin Tendulkar's longevity gave him the edge over other cricket greats, as not many players have lasted 24 years in the international arena.
Sachin Tendulkar, who made his international debut in 1989, retired in 2013 after notching up 100 centuries across formats at the highest level.
During his illustrious career, Sachin Tendulkar played 463 ODIs and 200 Tests, and he is the only cricketer to complete a double ton of five-day matches. Moreover, he remains the top run-scorer in both formats.
“I always like to judge the quality of players on their longevity in the game. I think that's the best way to judge players because maintaining such a higher level of excellence for so long is the hardest thing to do,” Ricky Ponting argued.
“Some players can come in and do it for three or four years and look like the best players in the world, but the very, very best sustain it for long periods of time and Sachin sustained it for more than 20 years at the international level,” the batting stalwart pointed out.
“I think his straight driving was his best shot. Whether it be on front foot or even back foot — because he was short in stature, he won't mind me saying that — he was able to sort of stand up on top of the bounce of the ball and punch it back down the ground, off the front foot or back foot.”
“The trademark things you think about with Tendulkar was just seeing the full face of that bat coming straight back down the line of the ball and straight back past the bowler. So I think that'd be his trademark for sure,” Ricky Ponting concluded.
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