"The point about Virat seems to....": RCB DoC Bobat ahead of SRH clash

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], April 14 (ANI): Ahead of his side's match against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at home, Royal Challenger Bengaluru (RCB) Director of Cricket Mo Bobat played down concerns over their star batter Virat Kohli's batting strike rate, saying that he is not worried about his scoring rate since the batter is scoring healthy amount of runs among all the openers in the league so far.
Pat Cummins-led SRH will take on Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at the latter's home venue of M Chinaswammy Stadium. While SRH is in the fifth spot with three wins and two losses, RCB is desperately searching for wins and is at the bottom with a win and five losses.
Ahead of the game, Bobat said in the pre-game press conference, "The point about Virat [and his strike rate] seems to get a lot of media and air time in India. Among all the openers playing in the competition, he has scored more runs than most of them. He has also offered a pretty healthy strike rate. So I am not spending too much time worrying about the way Virat's batting, because he is doing really well."
Virat is the top run-scorer in the tournament so far, with 319 runs in six games at an average of 79.75 and a strike rate of 141.77, with a century and two fifties. Despite Virat's impressive record in T20 cricket, debates have taken place about his batting style in short format, which mixes timely aggression with steady anchoring skills and how it fits within a more modern, attacking landscape of 20-over cricket.
Bobat said that team's star all-rounder Glenn Maxwell has undergone scans for his finger. He also backed the all-rounder to come good, who has scored just 32 runs in six innings so far, including three ducks. The DoC clarified that there are no injury concerns for Maxwell.
"Maxi has had a couple of scans, and he is okay at the minute. So, there are no injury concerns. He is going to practice today and get more of a feel," clarified Bobat.
"He is disappointed. He obviously has high standards and has a very, very impressive 12 to 24 months. He is in our plans and is an important part of our batting lineup. So, up until now, we are trying to support him as best as we can and help him find his best form," he added.
Bobat said that Maxwell is important for the team's middle-order and middle-overs batting and lauded Rajat Patidar for coming good in the previous game with a fifty.
"It is good to see Rajat (Patidar) come back to some form in the last game (against MI). We are really trying to target that middle phase of the game where we feel like we could probably score at a better rate or put more pressure on the opposition. So, we're trying to work with him (Maxwell) to do that," said Bobat.
Bobat said that there is no hiding that his team has not done well in the tournament so far.
"When you go into the competition, you work out what you think your best chances of winning are. We came into this competition in the last year of an auction cycle, you go to the auction, you improve the team, the best you can, you set the strategy, and you come in and you expect to deliver. Now, we have not played the way we want to play," concluded Bobat.
Sunrisers Hyderabad Squad: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Abdul Samad, Nitish Reddy, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins(c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan, Umran Malik, Washington Sundar, Mayank Markande, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips, Anmolpreet Singh, Upendra Yadav, Jhatavedh Subramanyan, Sanvir Singh, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Akash Maharaj Singh, Mayank Agarwal
Royal Challengers Bengaluru Squad: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis(c), Will Jacks, Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell, Dinesh Karthik(w), Mahipal Lomror, Reece Topley, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Saurav Chauhan, Suyash Prabhudessai, Swapnil Singh, Rajan Kumar, Karn Sharma, Tom Curran, Lockie Ferguson, Mayank Dagar, Alzarri Joseph, Cameron Green, Anuj Rawat, Manoj Bhandage, Yash Dayal, Himanshu Sharma. (ANI)