Refreshed Virat Kohli: Fresh from a break, Virat Kohli is in a great frame of mind and raring to go as Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) begin their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 campaign on Friday, says Mo Bobat, RCB’s Director of Cricket. Bobat has been closely watching Kohli during training and feels the great batter is hitting the ball superbly.“Virat’s in a good place. We all know he’s an absolute champion cricketer. So he’s at a stage of his career, in a stage of his experience now, where most of what he does is pretty hardwired into him. He’s coming in fresh, which is what we’re excited about,” Bobat said at the pre-match press conference ahead of RCB’s tournament opener at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium here on Friday.
“Kohli has had a good bit of time off from his cricket. He’s in a great frame of mind. He’s had good family time, he’s fresh with his energy and he’s looking forward to getting involved. He’s had a few hits with us over the last few days and he’s hitting the ball brilliantly,” he added.
Having taken over this season as Director of Cricket, along with new head coach Andy Flower, Bobat is excited to begin his time at RCB with what he feels is a very balanced squad.
“This is my first year, same for Andy Flower. We’re pretty excited about what we’re getting into here. RCB has a very rich history and it’s important to be cognizant of that history. But this is our time. It’s our time in the sun. It’s our opportunity to go out and play,” said Mo Bobat.
“We’ve got a fantastic group of players, we’re in good shape, got no injury concerns, fully fit squad, happy to make most of this opportunity in front of us. We’re going to pay most of our attention to how we want to play our cricket,” Bobat added.
Talking about the quality pace and spin bowling resources at his disposal, Bobat said RCB have a strong bowling attack. He remarked, “We’ve got a lot of international experience and IPL-winning experience. In our Indian quicks, we’ve got some high-quality players as well, with international and ‘A’ team experience.”
“In the spin department, we’ve got some potential in the likes of Himanshu (Sharma) and Mayank Dagar as examples. And also in someone like Karn Sharma, there’s a lot of experience. So we feel like we’ve got a really good balanced side,” he said.
“We’ve got some good all-rounders as well that will contribute. Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green. We’re very confident with our bowling attack. We did a lot of work at the auction and we managed to recruit our targets.,” Bobat concluded.