Kohli, Salt combine to give RCB the right flavour

Kolkata: In the backdrop of power hitting, sixes and a whole lot of strike rate dominated discussions, how about injecting some clarity and balance of thought? Virat Kohli does that quietly, effortlessly and efficiently.

Finishing unbeaten in two out of three fifties so far, both in chased down victories, with margins so comfortable that the games felt mismatched, Kohli has never seemed so at ease with this format. Many reasons can be attributed to Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s cruise mode in this IPL, one of them being Kohli not trying too hard.

It partly stems from the fact that he has retired from T20Is and hence isn’t under pressure to set an early tempo for India. But it’s also not as if he has totally forgotten that gear. There was that fifty in 29 balls against Mumbai Indians, where batting first, Kohli had hit three of the first nine balls he had faced for boundaries. Jasprit Bumrah was pulled over midwicket for a six, Will Jacks was schooled, and by the time he was dismissed Kohli had aggregated a strike rate of 159. Not earth shattering considering the deluge of boundary hitting we are witnessing this summer, but reassuringly Kohliesque.

Phil Salt is the other reason. In taking the lead to make the Powerplays count, Salt has effectively allowed Kohli to return to the anchor mode of batting that has now helped RCB win their fourth match away from home.

This is how Salt and Kohli have fared so far. At Eden Gardens, Salt went at a strike rate of 180, Kohli 163 but stayed unbeaten in a big win over KKR. In Chennai, Salt was going at 200 but Kohli at 103 and still RCB finished with 196. Against DC, Salt hammered 37 off 17, Kohli 22 off 14. Then in Jaipur, Salt scored 65 off 33 before Kohli took over and finished the chase with 62 off 45. In the two overs Jofra Archer had bowled in his opening spell, Kohli had to face just two balls. The only exception to this arrangement was at the Wankhede, when Salt was dismissed for 4, prompting Kohli to go into attack mode and score that fifty.

These are interesting numbers in the context of how Kohli remains the failsafe option of RCB’s innings while the other batters are going at a higher rate. Not only does it instill a sense of freedom in the overall batting, it essentially leaves Kohli to bat the way he wants. And he wants to go the distance. If RCB is batting first, he wants to make the starts count. And if they are chasing, he wants to finish.

This might be a slight role reversal from 2024 when he was opening the batting with a strike rate of 154.70 but 143.35 isn’t too far off either. And it can only improve. This is Dinesh Karthik, RCB’s mentor and batting coach, on Kohli when the IPL had just started.

“So, I believe right now, he is batting as well as he has ever done. And you speak to him even today, just now as I came out, he wanted to work on one more shot,” said Karthik. “At this point of time, to work on one more shot, tells you the hunger that he has in his mindset. He wants to just improve and keep raising the bar. So, he is a special player. And at this point of time, the way I see it, he is batting as confidently and as well as he has ever done in IPL.”

You will never know how captaincy had weighed on Kohli’s shoulders and if the move from No 3 to opening had in any way relieved it. What has never changed though is his clarity and game awareness. He now has 66 fifty-plus scores in the IPL, the joint-most with David Warner, and 100th T20 half-century overall. Given how fifties are still the currency of victories in T20, this tells you how deeply Kohli is tethered to the game.