When reports emerged that Virat Kohli is expected to once again lead the Royal Challengers Bengaluru, RCB fans went into a frenzy. The next day, the franchise made a bold choice by retaining their icon for Rs 21 crore, making Kohli the most expensive retention ever among Indians. Regardless, former Indian batter Sanjay Manjrekar doesn’t really boast highly of Virat Kohli, the captain. Moreover, he doesn’t even feel that the former Indian skipper is a “great” T20 batter.
Manjrekar lambasts Virat Kohli on IPL 2025 retention day
Manjrekar is known to be lethal and unfiltered opinions. This time, he tore into Virat Kohli, who is touted to become RCB’s captain in IPL 2025 after they retained just two other players in Rajat Patidar (Rs 11 crore) and Yash Dayal (Rs 5 crore). The former-cricketer-turned-commentator questioned the rumours of Kohli returning as RCB captain. He even went on to target his strike rate, that has come under scrutiny time and again as far as Kohli’s T20 game in concerned.
“I just have one question from the fans. If instead of Virat Kohli, there was someone else. You just remove Virat Kohli from your mind, and just look at his performance in the IPL, his batting and captaincy performance. Then you think whether it is the right decision to make him the captain. In IPL 2024, he had the strike-rate of 150, before that it was 110-120,” Manjrekar said on Star Sports on the IPL 2025 retention day.
Kohli, who has captained RCB across 143 IPL games, has led his team to 66 wins. Ever since he became a full-time RCB skipper, he took the franchise to just one IPL final, in 2016. Kohli, who is perhaps the biggest brand of IPL, has remained devoided off the IPL silverware.
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“Virat Kohli is not a great T20 player”
Manjrekar, in the same breathe, went on to question Virat Kohli the T20 player as well. Despite being the highest run-getter in IPL’s history with 8,004 runs, Kohli was asked about his “impact” by Manjrekar.
“As a T20 player, Virat Kohli, does he have the same impact? Just because he is Virat Kohli, 95 per cent fans want him to be the captain. But if you just go by his performances, it is not that impressive. This is my problem, I don’t want to get carried away, because of hero worship, I don’t want to get away from cricket logic. As a Test player, I believe Virat Kohli is needed by the team, but I don’t think he is a great and legendary T20 player,” he added
Manjrekar spoke bluntly about the “hero worship” that Kohli often recieves not just from RCB fans but from entire nation as a whole. Similarly, he went ahead as far as saying that Kohli isn’t a great T20 batter.
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