The 17th season of the IPL is set to go underway in a few days as the defending champion Chennai Super Kings are set to face Red Army Royal Challengers Bangalore in the tournament opener on March 22.
On the other hand, a former CSK and MI star has shared his opinion on Virat’s performance at Chepauk.
In his interview with Star Sports ahead of the upcoming IPL season, Harbhajan Singh shared his insights on the difficulty of playing in Chennai.
Harbhajan also spoke about Virat’s performance at Chepauk. Harbhajan said,The greatness of Virat has been reduced in terms of his overall performance at that venue. It is a tricky venue to bat, especially as an opening batsman against a sort of weird tennis ball-type bounce.
“CSK have got the great Jadeja bowling stump to stump. He’ll get the oddball to turn and then the oddball to stay low. It’s really tricky,” said Harbhajan.
Virat Kohli is the highest run scorer in the IPL, as the stalwart has scored 7263 in 237 matches. Virat Kohli has an average of 37.25 and a strike rate of 130.
But Virat’s performance with the bat is not as good as his numbers in other venues. Virat Kohli has an average of 30 and a strike rate of 111 at Chepauk.
Speaking of the same, Harbhajan said, “If he’s actually prepared to bat about 20 overs, then he can put together a match-winning performance because two hundred at the accessible Chinnaswamy do not necessarily guarantee the same at Chepauk.”
Harbhajan also said that Virat needs to unleash his beast mode in 2016. It’s important for him to have a season like 2016 because if Virat goes on to score runs, the team will go forward.
I don’t know if they will go on to win the Cup or not. “But with the brilliant individuals they have in their team—Virat, Maxwell, Green, and a few more, such as Patidar—I believe they have a lot of good batting, and everyone wants Virat to have a repeat of 2016.”
