Sunil Gavaskar lashes out at Virat Kohli after outburst against commentators on strike rate

Virat Kohli and Sunil Gavaskar. (Source -Twitter/X)

Virat Kohli recently fired at commentators and experts for criticising his strike rates in T20 cricket, especially in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Now, Sunil Gavaskar has lambasted the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batter, saying that the comments made by the 35-year-old insulted the knowledge of the commentators.

A hot topic of discussion in Indian cricket has been Kohli’s recent struggles against spin and a dip in his strike rates, especially through the middle overs. However, the legendary batter continues to be one of the most consistent batters in IPL 2024 and is the leading run-getter with 542 runs from 11 games at an average of 67.75.

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In a recent interview with the commentators, Kohli addressed the debate around his strike rates and his batting against spin. The former India captain said that winning games is the most important thing for him and that he has done it for 15 years. He stated that it is easy to criticise his performances from the commentary box but the ones who have faced the music day in and day out would know the challenges that the sport brings.

“Not really, all the people who talk about strike-rates and me not playing spin well are the ones talking about this stuff. For me, it’s about winning the games for the team and there’s a reason why you’ve done it for 15 years, you’ve done this day in and day out, you’ve won games for your teams, I’m not quite sure that if you haven’t been in that situation yourself, to sit and talk about the game in the box. For me, people can talk about their assumptions day in and day out, but those have done day in and day out, they know what’s happening and it’s a kind of muscle memory for me now,” Kohli had said.

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After watching this clip, Gavaskar hit back at Kohli as he felt that the comments were a direct insult to the knowledge of the former cricketers, who are working as experts.

“Commentators questioned only when his strike rate was 118. I’m not too sure. I don’t watch too many matches, so I don’t know what the other commentators have said otherwise. But if you come and open and then have a strike rate of 118 when you get out in the 14th or the 15th over, I mean, if you want applause for that, that’s a little bit differnet. That’s different,” an irate Gavaskar said on Star Sports as quoted by The Times of India.

Gavaskar explained that experts do not have any animosity against the players. The former India opener said that players should refrain from replying to ‘outside noise’ if they say it doesn’t bother them.

“All these guys talk about, ‘oh we don’t care about outside noise’. Accha! Then why are you replying to any outside noise or whatever it is. We all played a bit of cricket, not a lot of cricket. We don’t have agendas. We speak about what we see. We don’t necessarily have any likes and dislikes. Even if we have likes and dislikes, we actually speak on what is happening,” Gavaskar stated.