“Would like to see him take the game on and boss the game” – Tom Moody on expectations from Virat Kohli in IPL 2024

Former Australian all-rounder Tom Moody wants Virat Kohli to take the game and boss it in the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League 2024. Kohli will open the innings for Royal Challengers Bengaluru with skipper Faf du Plessis.

The talisman missed the five-match Test series against England due to a personal reason and will now return to action. Meanwhile, Virat Kohli scored 639 runs for the franchise in the previous season but the team failed to qualify for the playoffs as they finished in sixth place with seven wins and as many losses.

Kohli has amassed 7263 runs in 237 IPL matches at an average of 37.25 and a strike rate of 130.02, including seven centuries and he is the highest run-getter in the history of the tournament.

“Would like to see him take the game on and boss the game because he has got the game, he has got more than the game as one of the greats. When he does that, he looks unstoppable. I keep getting flashbacks of 2016 when he had a bumper year and you just couldn’t bowl to him. No one was looking at the strike rate then because he was just controlling the game and no one could bowl to him at that point,” said Moody on ESPN Cricinfo.

“With the Impact Sub now in play and the reinforcements RCB have got with their batting, would love to see Virat go out there and boss the game. He can do it because you are not asking someone to do something they are not capable of doing. He can do it and just tear this tournament apart,” he added.

On the other hand, former Indian opener Wasim Jaffer wants Virat Kohli to bat aggressively from the get-go. Jaffer reckons RCB will need an extra cushion of runs because of their weak bowling line-up.

“When Virat previously batted, he needed somebody with him to bat at a 150-160 strike rate. Again, with the kind of form Faf is in, not having a great SA20, which puts a lot of pressure on Virat. But he (Kohli) needs to bat in an attacking manner, earlier he used to bat in situations and he wanted the other guy to take the mantle of scoring quickly. Now he needs to do that and on top of that, their (RCB) bowling attack isn’t great so they needed to score 20-30 runs more to win games,” said Jaffer.

IPL 2024 will begin on March 22 with RCB taking on defending champions CSK at Chennai.