“He’s always looking to try and get better,” Steyn, Kohli’s one-time team-mate at RCB, said on ESPNcricinfo’s Time:Out show. “He’s what we talk about. He plays what’s in front of him. He reads the situation. Probably one of the best players that I’ve ever known that reads the situation and calculates how the game needs to be panned out from the first ball that he’s faced.
“He’s kind of worked out a road to get to the final runs. He’s the best chaser to have ever played the game.”
“When we went into the dressing room [after the GT innings], we felt they were probably 15-20 runs short,” Padikkal said after the game. “And that gave us the confidence going into the batting innings.”
“The evolution of those numbers for a guy who is in his mid-30s now, [that he] continues to evolve in a game that has gone high-tempo and high-gear is to me extraordinary, that he’s been able to do this and find a role for himself in such a position”
Ian Bishop
Speaking about Kohli, with whom he batted from the fourth over to the 13th, Padikkal said, “Although he’s achieved everything that is there to be achieved in this game, he still continues to give his 100% in every single practice session and every single match that he plays. And that kind of commitment is very hard to find. And when you see someone really so driven and so passionate about the game, it really rubs off to everybody in the side as well. I’m sure his energy is helping everyone in the team.”
The commitment and drive, as Padikkal put it, must be a big reason for Kohli’s evolution as a T20 batter. He first topped the mark of 140 for the strike rate across the season in 2010, but had only crossed it in three seasons till IPL 2024. In 2024, he scored at 154.70. In 2025, he went at 144.71. And he is at 163.18 this season. The runs have never been a problem. No one has ever scored more than the 973 Kohli scored in 2016. Apart from 2017 and 2022, he hasn’t failed to top 400 runs for a season since 2016, and had 639, 741 and 657 in the last three seasons.
“I love Kohli the batter,” Bishop said. “But the evolution of those numbers for a guy who is in his mid-30s [37] now, [that he] continues to evolve in a game that has gone high-tempo and high-gear is to me extraordinary, that he’s been able to do this and find a role for himself in such a position.”
That Kohli is outstanding in white-ball run-chases is common knowledge, and he gave a bit of an idea of that aspect of his game after the win.
“We were looking at [a chase of] 230-235 at one stage. The feedback was that the pitch was not bad at all. Best batting conditions we’ve had this season,” he told the broadcasters after picking up yet another Player-of-the-Match award. “So if we stayed in the game long enough, it would get tougher and tougher for [the GT] bowlers. Dev was going great guns and the idea was to keep the pressure on the bowlers. There was intent, clarity and feedback, and we didn’t have any doubts in the partnership and that’s what worked for us.”
A role RCB are happy for him to do what he wants with. After all, they won the title last year, for the first time, and Kohli seemed to send out a warning for the other teams as RCB wrapped up their league-stage engagements at the Chinnaswamy: “Special place to play cricket and hopefully we’ll be able to come back and play here again later in the season.”
