A fair share of attention during Friday’s IPL 2024 opener between defending champions Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai will be on Virat Kohli.
This will be Kohli’s first on-field appearance since he had taken time off for the birth of his second child. How Kohli performs will be crucial to RCB’s fortunes in this IPL. But what augurs well for the franchise is the former captain being in “good space”.
“Virat’s in a good space. We all know he’s an absolute champion cricketer. He’s at a stage of his career, in a stage of his experience now, where most of what he does is pretty hardwired into him.
“He’s coming in fresh, which is what we’re excited about,” RCB director Mo Bobat said at the pre-match news conference on Thursday.
“Kohli has had a good bit of time off from his cricket. He’s in a great frame of mind. He’s had good family time, he’s fresh with his energy and he’s looking forward to getting involved.
“He’s had a few hits with us over the last few days and he’s hitting the ball brilliantly.”
The three-time runners-up are also quite upbeat about the balance in their side.
“In our Indian quicks, we’ve got some high quality players as well, with international and ‘A’ team experience.”
“In the spin department, we’ve got some potential in the likes of Himanshu (Sharma) and Mayank Dagar. We’ve got some good all-rounders as well, like Glenn Maxwell andCameron Green. We’re very confident with our group,” the team director stated.