Irfan and Kaif slam Virat Kohli's critics after Travis Head's slow knock vs RR
Irfan and Kaif slam Virat Kohli’s critics after Travis Head’s slow knock vs RR
Former India cricketers Irfan Pathan and Mohammed Kaif have slammed critics questioning Virat Kohli’s strike rate in the ongoing Indian Premier League 2024. During Match 50 of the season between SRH and RR, opener Travis Head played quite an uncharacteristic knock of 58 (44) with the help of six fours and three sixes. Kaif said that had the same knock been played by Kohli, there would’ve been widespread debates on his strike rate.
Head wasn’t as fluent as he was expected to be, after he batted at a strike rate of 131.82, as opposed to his season strike rate of 194.11. Head put his head down after SRH had lost Abhishek Sharma (12 off 10) and Anmolpreet Singh (5 off 5) early in the powerplay. While speaking during the mid-innings show of the match, both Kaif and Pathan began questioning Kohli’s critics and urged them to treat every player equally.
“According to his ability, you have never seen him play like this. No matter what you say that there was good bowling and everything, but every cricketer should be treated equally,” Irfan said on Star Sports.
“You are right, if this was Virat Kohli, I can guarantee that people would have said only 58 runs in 44 balls? What is this? They would say it is low and there would have debates about his strike rate. But I believe that this was a good innings by Head,” said Kaif.
Notably, Kohli’s strike-rate has come under the scanner in the ongoing season of the IPL despite the star batter being the second-highest run-scorer of the season. The RCB opener has 500 runs to his name in the season so far from 10 innings at an average of 71.42 and a strike rate of 147.49 with one hundred and four fifties.
However, it was the innings against KKR (83 off 59), RR (113* off 72) and SRH (51 off 43) which attracted criticism from the pundits over indifferent strike-rates. Meanwhile, coming back to the game between SRH and RR, the Pat Cummins-led side finally managed to end Rajasthan’s 4-match-winning streak.
They defended 201 courtesy of a 3-wicket haul from Bhuvneshwar Kumar (3/41) while Nitish Reddy (76* off 42) and Heinrich Klaasen (42* off 19) starred with the bat. Yashasvi Jaiswal (67 off 40) and Riyan Parag (77 off 49) shone with the bat in Rajasthan’s run chase, but to no avail.
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