Virat Kohli blasted for 'Faf du Plessis Impact Player’ blunder at toss vs PBKS in IPL 2023
While the RCB fans rejoiced at Virat Kohli's return as the leader, his decision to reveal the name of the Impact Player did not go down well with the fans.
Cricket fans were in for a pleasant surprise on Thursday as Virat Kohli walked out for the toss wearing the Royal Challengers Bangalore jersey in their IPL 2023 match against Punjab Kings in Mohali. October 11, 2021, was the last time Kohli led RCB in the 14th edition of the IPL. He then stepped down ahead of the 2022 season and RCB roped in Faf du Plessis as their skipper. The South African since then has been leading RCB from the front but in match no. 27 of IPL 2023, something unusual happened.
Kohli returned as captain but not in the absence of du Plessis, who was a part of the playing XI. Yes, you read that right. Kohli was captaining RCB in the presence of du Plessis. Basically, the regular RCB captain was fit enough to bat but he would have issues while fielding due to an injury he suffered in RCB's last match. Hence, the RCB team management decided to play it smart and make use of the Impact Player rule.
Kohli, at the toss, confirmed that du Plessis will only bat and he will be substituted by an Impact Player, Vyshak Kumar. "Faf potentially can't be fielding today, so he'll be playing as an Impact Player, switching with Vyshak (Kumar)," Kohli said at the toss. He was wrong to term du Plessis as an Impact Player. Since PBKS won the toss and opted to bowl, du Plessis will be considered a part of the starting XI and the cricketer who will replace him will be an Impact Player. In this case, Vyshak Kumar.
This was not the first time that a captain played only as a batter in this IPL. Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma handed the captaincy to Suryakumar Yadav in the match against KKR only to return as an Impact Player once it was MI's turn to bat.
While the RCB fans rejoiced at Kohli's return as the leader after a gap of 556 days, his decision to reveal the name of the Impact Player and who he will replace did not go down well with the fans.
This is how Twitter reacted to Kohli's decision of revealing RCB's Impact Player at the toss
PBKS too had a stand-in skipper as their regular captain Shikhar Dhawan was not fit to play. Sam Curran was leading PBKS for the second match in a row.
Punjab Kings XI: Atharva Taide, Matthew Short, Harpreet Singh Bhatia, Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran (c), Jitesh Sharma (w), Shahrukh Khan, Harpreet Brar, Nathan Ellis, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh.
Royal Challengers Bangalore XI: Virat Kohli (c), Faf du Plessis, Mahipal Lomror, Glenn Maxwell, Shahbaz Ahmed, Dinesh Karthik (w), Wanindu Hasaranga, Suyash Prabhudessai, Harshal Patel, Wayne Parnell, Mohammed Siraj.
