Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has reacted to Virat Kohli, who recently hit back at his critics ravaging him for his strike-rate. Star player Virat Kohli has found himself under huge criticism for his slow strike-rate in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024. Recently, Kohli broke his silence, blasting his critics for criticising him. 

Kohli has been the highest run-scorer for RCB and has been playing a pivotal role in team’s success. Yet, he has been receiving constant criticism for maintaining a slow strike-rate. Gavaskar, meanwhile expounded the criticism surrounding Kohli’s strike-rate. 

“Commentators questioned only when his strike-rate was 118. I’m not too sure. I don’t watch too many matches, so I don’t know what the other commentators have said otherwise. But if you come and open and then have a strike of 118 when you get out in the 14th or the 15th over, I mean, if you want applause for that, that’s a little bit different. That’s different," Gavaskar said. 

“All these guys talk about, ‘oh we don’t care about outside noise’. Accha? Then why are you replying to any outside noise or whatever it is. We all played a bit of cricket, not a lot of cricket. We don’t have agendas. We speak about what we see. We don’t necessarily have any likes and dislikes. Even if we have likes and dislikes, we actually speak on what is happening,” he added.

Virat Kohli, after RCB’s win over Gujarat Titans, had lambasted his critics by saying he plays for team’s success. 

"All the people who talk about strike rates and me not playing spin well are the ones who love talking about this stuff. But for me, it's just about winning the game for the team. And there's a reason why you do it for 15 years… because you've done this day in and day out; you've won games for your teams,” Kohli said after the match while speaking to the broadcaster.