Virat Kohli says he doesn’t want to be a 360-degree player because he has to meet the differing demands of the three formats as an all-year-round player.
“I’ve never been a guy who tries so many fancy shots, because we have to play 12 months of the year,” Kohli said after scoring a match-winning 100 off 63 balls for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Thursday night.
“For me, it’s not playing fancy shots and throwing my wicket away. We’ve got Test cricket after the IPL, so I’ve got to stay true to my technique and find ways to win games for my team, something that I take a lot of pride in, and when I can make an impact in an important game, obviously that gives me confidence, gives the team confidence, and it just helps the team overall, which is something that I look to do.”
Kohli has often been criticised for not trying to play in a T20-specific way but the modern-day great has acknowledged that it could affect a batter’s ability to handle the demands of Test cricket.
Kohli thus continues to score hundreds in the IPL without compromising on his technique. Thursday night’s innings against the Sunrisers was his seventh T20 hundred and his sixth in the IPL.
“It’s my sixth IPL hundred, and I don’t give myself enough credit for that sometimes, because I put myself under so much stress already,” he said. “I don’t really care about what anyone says on the outside, to be honest, because that’s their opinion.
“When you’re in that situation yourself, you know how to win games of cricket, and I’ve done that for a long period of time, so it’s not like when I play I don’t win games for my team. It’s playing the situation that I take pride in.”
He felt the innings was “special”. “It is quite special considering the magnitude of the game.”
