Talismanic Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batter Virat Kohli is being called “selfish” on social media after the franchise suffered a fourth defeat in five matches following his hundred against the Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Saturday.
Sports Today Exposing Virat Kohli The Selfish Player in The History of Game Cricket.
Virat Kohli doesn't deserve the place in T20 WC Squad.
Slowest Century in the history of IPL 😭😭#RRvsRCB || #ViratKohli
pic.twitter.com/8SjcmCmHU8— Shubham 𝕏 (@DankShubhum) April 6, 2024
Sports today owning virat Kohli the #selfish player this planet have ever produced. 🐐 pic.twitter.com/yMfs6qIrgT
— Office Of Chaudhary Rohit Singh Yadav (@OfficeOfCRSY) April 7, 2024
He completed his century in 67 balls and carried the bat through to an unbeaten 113 off 72 balls, ending RCB's allocated 20 overs with the joint-slowest ton in the IPL. In 2009, out-of-favor Team India batter Manish Pandey scored his century in the same number of balls against the Deccan Chargers.
Overall, he faced 72 balls during his innings – the third-highest in the Indian Premier League.
New Zealander Brendon McCullum smashed an unbeaten 158 off 73 balls in the maiden IPL clash in 2008 while Manish Pandey needed 73 deliveries for his unbeaten 114 vs the Deccan Chargers the following year.
Subsequently, “selfish” became one of the top trends on Twitter, now X, with a news channel exposing Virat Kohli's stats in their show.
The program seemed quite strange, given that from start to finish – Virat Kohli looked like a man on a mission as he smashed a record-eighth IPL hundred, bettering his own record of seven tons in the elite T20 competition.
Virat Kohli struck a masterful unbeaten 113 off 72 balls to become the first player to score more than 7500 runs in the IPL. His run tally for the RCB in the IPL now stands at 7579 runs.
In addition to that, the Delhi-born cricketer has made 424 runs for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the now-defunct Champions League T20 tournament. Across the two events, Virat Kohli has scored 8003 runs for the RCB, making him the first player to compile that many runs for a single team in the T20 format.
It was Virat Kohli's ninth century in T20 cricket, having also slammed one for Team India against Afghanistan during the Asia Cup in September 2022. Only two men have more tons in the 20-over format – Chris Gayle (22) and Babar Azam (10).
Though Virat Kohli looked fluid from the word go, he did not explode initially, relying largely on rotating the strike and smashing an odd boundary whenever the Rajasthan Royals bowlers erred in their line and length.
However, as his innings progressed, Virat Kohli grew in confidence and began hitting boundaries and sixes at will.
But once, RCB captain and his opening partner Faf du Plessis fell for 44 in the 14th over after an opening stand of 125 runs, the onus came back on Virat Kohli to take his team to a fine total.
Virat Kohli grabbed the opportunity with both hands, delivering the goods in a challenging environment as he smacked 42 runs in his last 22 balls, with six boundaries and a maximum.
Unfortunately, for the 35-year-old batter, RCB's big names – Glenn Maxwell and Cameroon Green, famous for their explosive batting, failed to get going and that's why RCB was denied the late flourish that could have taken them to a total of 200.
Virat Kohli's ton eventually went in vain as Rajasthan Royals batters, Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson's splendid knocks of 100 off 58 deliveries, and 69 off 42 balls, respectively, powered the home side to a six-wicket win at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur.
Meanwhile, India great Virender Sehwag trashed all the negative talk surrounding Virat Kohli's strike rate in the contest, stressing that it was the demand of the situation, considering that other RCB batters have been struggling for form in the current edition of the IPL.
“I think RCB are 20 runs short. If I talk about Virat Kohli, the innings has been good. But the guys who had to accompany him, Glenn Maxwell, Cameroon Green, Dinesh Karthik did not come to bat, there was no Mahipal Lomror. Nobody was there at the end who could end. However, Virat Kohli's strike-rate could have gone up. Because when you hit 50 off 39 balls, then the strike-rate goes up, nears 200 even. But the other batters did not do anything. All the pressure was on Kohli,” Virender Sehwag told Cricbuzz.
“He is in form. That's his role that he will stay till the end. The other batters who have been picked by paying so much money, they should prove their mettle. Like Maxwell. But nobody did anything today,” he concluded.
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