Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli (Credits: IPL)

With the 13th edition of the IPL in the UAE merely 20 days away, teams have started preparing vigorously towards it. Virat Kohli, the skipper of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), was amongst the prominent ones to hit the nets on the franchise’s first day of training after serving the mandatory quarantine period. The franchise’s official Twitter handle posted a video of the same.

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Virat Kohli is the highest run-getter in the history of Indian Premier League (IPL) with 5412 runs in 177 games, averaging 37.84. The Indian captain also holds the record for most runs in a single edition when he mustered 973 in 2016 alongside four centuries out of five in total. However, Kohli is yet to guide RCB to their first title, having taken over the leadership reins from Daniel Vettori in 2013.

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) (Credits: Twitter)

Ahead of the 13th edition, the franchise decided to retain their skipper; however, made sweeping changes to their coaching staff. They appointed former Kiwi coach Mike Hesson as the director of cricket operations while roping in Simon Katich as head coach. The management also opted to buy bowlers, who can serve them well during death overs. Meanwhile, in the below clip, Kohli can be seen playing the pull shot to great effect of a left-arm seamer.

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Below is Virat Kohli’s clip of him middling the ball:

Hesson, who engaged in a virtual media interaction, remains confident that they have their death bowling covered for which they battled in the auction. The 45-year old backed that the likes of Chris Morris, Isuru Udana, Dale Steyn, and Navdeep Saini along with spinners to do an excellent job for them. He underlined that unlike the previous editions, they are not overdependent on the batting unit.

We were very clear about our death bowling and wanted to make sure we got it covered. We went into the auction wanting to fix that,” said Hesson at the virtual media interaction. “We have got Udana, Morris, Richardson, Steyn.

“Navdeep Saini has done the job nicely and our spinners too will play a big part. We got Chahal who is exceptional bowler and a nice mix of spinners (Shahbaz Nadeem, Pawan Negi, Moeen Ali). We think we are not so much reliant on our batting and have a balanced unit,” Hesson stated as quoted by News18.

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