With the IPL 2025 kickoff for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) set for March 22, Sarandeep Singh, ex-India spinner and selector, thinks Virat Kohli has gotten smarter at knowing when to switch things up in his batting and control the game.
Stats from Cricket-21 say Kohli went for a fresh T20 batting style in IPL 2024, ending up as the top run-scorer with 741 runs in 15 matches. His powerplay strike rate jumped to 161, a big leap from his usual 120. Also, 72% of his runs in the powerplay came from boundaries.
This shows that even though he’s done with T20Is for India, Kohli isn’t slowing down. He’s changing his game to fit what’s needed and racking up runs in the IPL.
His strike rate’s always been good. No need to even mention it. He’s been playing for 18 years and doing great in every format. He’s the best in all of them. When you’ve been around that long and become one of the world’s best, you get more responsibility.
If you look at RCB, he’s the main guy who performs and wins them games every year. You can see he’s super focused, not like other players. We saw it recently in the Champions Trophy – how he came back, scored tons, and played with a good strike rate. Virat Kohli just knows when to mix it up and how to run the show.
He usually doesn’t open, but he does in the IPL and attacks in the first six overs. Then he kinda controls stuff and tries to bat for 14-15 overs. It helps the guys in the middle order, the hitters at six or seven. The fewer balls they face, the better. So, he’s one of the best, in my opinion. Kohli’s just getting better with age, said Sarandeep, a JioStar expert, in a chat with IANS before the tournament.
He remembered when Delhi’s Ranji Trophy team picked up good habits from Kohli during their match against Railways earlier this year, which had over 20,000 fans for the first couple of days at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.
When he played the Ranji Trophy game in Delhi, you could feel his presence. It felt like an international match, not a domestic one. He was just as intense every day – practicing with the red ball, hitting the gym, and working hard on his batting and fielding.
He was super disciplined, and it helped the Delhi cricketers a ton in the week or so he was with them. He taught them a lot – like if you want to do well, you gotta be disciplined. The more discipline you have, the better you’ll play.
About the new Indian players in IPL 2025, a bunch of them came from their state T20 leagues. Guys like Priyansh Arya, Prince Yadav, Digvesh Rathi, and Vansh Bedi got IPL deals after playing well in the first Delhi Premier League (DPL).
First, we gotta thank Rohan Jaitley for making the Delhi Premier League happen. We saw some amazing performances, with like 15-16,000 people in the stands every match, which was great for the Delhi players. Delhi’s a big place with lots of cricket and hidden talent that doesn’t always get noticed. In first-class cricket, you can only pick so many players.
But if you have thousands of players, why not give them a shot? That’s where the Delhi Premier League helped. Like, Vansh Vedi never played U16 or U19, but he played great in the Delhi Premier League. So we picked him for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, though he only played one game. Now he’s been picked for the Chennai Super Kings, and it’s gonna be huge for him to be around a legend like MS Dhoni, Sarandeep added.
Priyansh, a left-handed batter, killed it for Delhi in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, smashing 325 runs in nine matches with a strike rate of 177. He even hit a century on the first day. He scored the most runs in DPL 2024 with 608 runs, while Digvesh stood out as a bowler with 14 wickets.
Then there’s Priyansh Arya, an uncapped player who got Rs 3.8 crore from Punjab Kings and also hit six sixes for the South Delhi team, where I was the director. He did better in domestic cricket because of the DPL, which got him picked for the IPL. Digvesh is a mystery spinner. He played in Delhi’s leagues, and no one knew about him. As soon as he joined the South Delhi team, he played well in domestic cricket.
IPL team scouts were at the DPL, watching these players to pick them later. It’s great for these local players who didn’t get chances on bigger stages and got spotted through the DPL. Now they’re in the IPL. They’ve got a chance, and they just gotta go for it, Sarandeep finished.
