‘Bowling to Virat Kohli is hard’

Virat Kohli is regarded as one of the legends of the game. In his international career, he has achieved almost everything that every cricketer dreams of achieving. Even at 35, Kohli is supremely fit and is still scoring runs consistently.

Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan has been one of the finest bowlers in the history of T20 cricket. Rashid has bowled to Kohli on numerous occasions, not only in international cricket but in the IPL as well. Recently, the legspinner opened up about the challenges that he has faced while bowling to Virat Kohli.

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Rashid Khan speaks his heart out on playing against Virat Kohli

During an interaction with Star Sports, Rashid Khan spoke about the difficulties of bowling to a batter like Kohli. Rashid clearly mentioned in his conversation that it is extremely hard to bowl to Kohli as there is very little margin of error.

“As a bowler, you have no option of bowling any loose balls to him. You have to be accurate with your lines and lengths. That’s something with me over the years whenever I have played with him, just to keep that consistency of bowling in one line and length. I find it hard. I need to keep pitching the ball right there,” Rashid said.

“I think that’s something you need to do as a bowler with the class batsman that he is. Bowling to such a batter is quite hard because Virat is always trying to find gaps. He plays the ball for two runs. It definitely puts extra pressure on you as a bowler. So, there is no option of bowling a bad ball to such a batter,” he added.

‘You are learning so many things from him’ – Rashid Khan on bowling to Virat Kohli

Along with the difficulties of bowling to Kohli, Rashid also pointed out the learnings while bowling to such a batter.

“You always have to be very accurate. But still if he tries to find a boundary off your good balls, then it will have more pressure on you. You have a very less margin of error. You have to be very accurate but at the same time, that competition happening with him is so huge that you are learning so many things from him. I have the kind of competition where I am more focused where I have to bowl. So, it’s always great whenever I am bowling to him,” the Afghanistan captain mentioned.

Afghanistan’s bowling in good form

With India’s Super Eight campaign of the T20 World Cup 2024 stated to get underway against Afghanistan in Barbados on June 20, the eyes will be once again on Virat Kohli to deliver on the big stage. But it won’t be an easy task for the Indian maestro as he will have a tough bowling attack eager to bowl at him.

Afghanistan have a good bowling attack with both the fast bowlers and spinners being in good form. They probably have the best spin attack in the competition led by their star captain Rashid Khan. Noor Ahmad and Mohammad Nabi are the other spinners in the line-up.

Afghanistan also pose a threat through their fast bowling line-up. Left-arm seamer Fazalhaq Farooqi has been in superb form this tournament as he is the highest-wicket taker of the tournament currently with 12 wickets in four matches at an average of 6.66. Naveen-ul-Haq has given him good company so far.