'Following my instinct'
Dashing India batsman Virat Kohli has said that following his instincts and concentrating on his strengths has helped him get on top of his Twenty20 game. The 27-year-old batsman feels the exponential rise in his Twenty20 batting curve owes much to relieving himself of the mental shackles.
The current Test skipper of India averaged 34.52 at a strike rate of 130.44 in his first four years of Twenty20 cricket (2010-13) -- a commendable feat in itself -- but what he has achieved since is quite enviable. Kohli explained this transformation at a press conference in Mirpur yesterday, ahead of the opening match of the Asia Cup.
“In my early T20 playing days, my plan was to get myself in and get maybe 10 off 10 balls and then take off. I used to think too much about T20 cricket before saying maybe I don't have the kind of shots that other people have, the ability to hit big sixes so I used to try a lot more, you know, planning too much.”
Since the start of 2014, Kohli has been scoring at a staggering average of 89.71 and a strike rate of 140. The Delhi-born batsman feels that the transformation began when he started concentrating on his strengths and letting go of things he was not at ease with.
“Now I just try to follow my instinct,” Kohli said. “I have come to terms with the fact that I can't hit too many sixes, so I focus on boundaries. So I sort of moulded my game towards that and try to hit the ball into the gaps and get fours. I would rather hit fours than sixes and get the results.”
We may never know the details of the mental and technical adjustments that have contributed to this transition, but Kohli's his words, backed up by the jaw-dropping numbers, makes it obvious that a batsman with a decent technique does not need to re-engineer approach altogether, rather only needs to fine-tune things within his own confines to get the desired results in different formats -- something which many a batsman can learn from.
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