Cricket: Cricket-Kohli sweeps aside strike-rate concerns to keep Bengaluru alive

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Run machine Virat Kohli produced a match-winning knock in the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Thursday that will ease concerns about his strike rate ahead of the T20 World Cup next month.

Kohli has been remarkably consistent in the 10-team league and is comfortably the competition’s leading scorer with 634 runs from 12 matches this season.

Many, however, felt he was not scoring those runs quick enough for a top-order batter, pointing to his strike rate of 153.51.

As if to silence his critics, Kohli smashed 92 off 47 balls against Punjab Kings on Thursday night to keep Bengaluru alive in the playoff race.

“It was important to keep up my strike rate through the innings, so I was just focused on taking the momentum forward for the team,” Kohli said after the Bengaluru innings.

The former India captain was dropped twice and he capitalised on that, hitting six sixes and seven fours in his breezy knock.

Particularly remarkable was how Kohli used the sweep shot to counter spin in the away match in Dharamsala.

“I just felt like I need to take a bit more risk and for me that shot was something that I used to hit regularly back in the day,” Kohli said after collecting the Player-of-the-Match award.

“I think it just takes a bit more conviction and take out that thought that props up: ‘What if you get out?’.

“I’ve been managing to stay ahead of that thought in this IPL and that’s really helped me in the middle overs, keeping my strike rate up and keeping the scoring rate going for the team as well.”

Six successive losses nearly derailed Bengaluru’s campaign this season but they have since bounced back to string together four wins in a row.

“We were just not good enough in the first half of the tournament,” Kohli said.

“(It’s) precisely why we are in a situation again where so many factors have to go our way. We won the second game of the season and then we had those losses on the trot.”

(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)