IPL 2020: We Will Have More Fun Next Week - Virat Kohli Gives A Pep Talk To Teammates

Captain of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), Virat Kohli gives his piece of advice to the team and promises them that they will have more fun in the next few days than they have had till now in IPL 2020.

Kohli and his team will face Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the Eliminator on Friday in Abu Dhabi. RCB finished fourth on the points table and qualified for the playoffs pipping Kolkata on the net run rate. However, Virat Kohli’s team is on a four-match losing streak going into the playoffs.

I want all of us to be in a positive mindset: Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli along with Coach, Simon Katich, and Director of cricket operations, Mike Hesson, chatted with the team ahead of their fixture against SRH. Kohli, who is currently the fifth leading run-scorer of the season, urged his teammates to be in a positive mindset. The skipper, who also led the team to the 2016 IPL final, promised the players that they will have more fun in the next week than they have had in the league stage.

In a video uploaded on RCB’s Twitter account, Virat Kohli said, “I want all of us to be in a positive mindset. I promise you we will have more fun in this next week than we had in two and a half months.”

Head Coach, Simon Katich said that it is a fantastic achievement to reach the playoffs and the players have done a lot of hard work to achieve it. The Aussie also knows that they haven’t played up to the expectations in the last 4 games and said the players to grab their opportunities on Friday and turn it around. He appreciated Shahbaz Ahmed who bowled beautifully and took a couple of wickets against Delhi.

“Well done on a fantastic achievement of reaching the playoffs. It obviously requires a lot of hard work, so well done on that. The finish hasn’t been as planned but what’s done is done. We can now look for the opportunity which comes up on Friday and grab that opportunity.

“The things that stand for me is that certain guys played according to their role in our last game. One obviously was Shahbaz (Ahmed); he picked his first wicket in the IPL,” said Simon Katich.

Virat Kohli while has piled runs this season, his strike rate, especially in the middle-overs has received a lot of criticism. RCB was without the services of Navdeep Saini against Delhi, and there is no confirmation yet on the pacer. Bangalore had qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 2016 when they lost the final to Hyderabad, and they are up against the same team in the Eliminator.

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