With barely two days left for the upcoming Indian Premier League 2024, batting icon and superstar Indian player Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore ex-colleague South Africa great AB de Villiers backed his friend to be at his usual best.
The Royal Challengers Bangalore is all set to face the defending champions Chennai Super Kings at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on 22 March.
Meanwhile, Kohli has not played competitive cricket in almost two months after opting out of the recently concluded Test series against England at home.
Citing his massive record of scoring 7,263 runs in 200 matches, making Kohli the highest run-scorer feat in the event, De Villiers termed Kohli’s IPL career as ‘incredible’.
“Stalwart, King Kohli, over 7000 runs, over 200 IPL matches — but that’s simply incredible. That’s like a career in itself.
“Virat will be back. We’ve missed him dearly and absolutely cannot wait to watch the best of him this coming season,” de Villiers said on his YouTube channel.
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Apart from Kohli, De Villiers also backed his fellow South African and current RCB skipper Faf du Plessis to deliver this IPL season.
De Villiers preferred to look at the positive side of things for Du Plessis, who gained a late momentum during the SA20 this year with Joburg Super Kings.
“He has had a little bit of a dip in form of late, but towards the back end of the SA20, he started finding his feet again, which boasts well for RCB this season,” he said.
Among other things, De Villiers also had words of praise for RCB’s bowling attack including Lockie Ferguson, Reece Topley, Mohammed Siraj, Alzarri Joseph, and Karn Sharma.
Some of the uncapped talents who will be eyeing to draw attention are Akash Deep, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Yash Dayal, Mayank Dagar, and Himanshu Sharma.
raising RCB’s bowling depth, de Villiers noted, “The bowling department, led by Mohammed Siraj, plays a huge role in that bowling department,” de Villiers said.
“I think there’s very nice depth this time around, and I think that’s one of the big reasons I feel RCB is going to go all the way this year.”
With agency inputs.
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Published: 20 Mar 2024, 10:47 PM IST