For me, it's about winning the games for the team – Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli continued to ace the scoring charts with another phenomenal display of his batting prowess as he rocked 70 runs off just 44 balls in a lopsided chase. RCB rode on some classic power-hitting from Kohli and Will Jacks to cruise past the Gujarat Titans in a high-octane runfest at Ahmedabad.

Talking in the post-match presentation, Virat had quite a lot to say as he addressed a few questions looming large around him while he also shed some light on how he has been doing things over and over again in his prolonged and illustrious cricket career.

Heaping praise on Jacks, Virat said, “Phenomenal, I mean when he initially came onto bat, he was a bit annoyed that he wasn't able to strike the ball as cleanly as he wanted to, but the only conversation between us in the middle was to keep backing, keep committing because we know how explosive he can be. My role completely changed as soon as he got that big over off Mohit, for good, I was glad to be watching the game from the other end. I mean, I thought we could win the game in 19 overs, but to finish it in 16 overs was an outstanding effort. I think it was one of the better T20I hundreds one would ever see, I was just happy to watch it closely from the other end.”

He also shed some light on the conditions, adding, “The wicket was pretty good, I mean towards the later half of their innings, it started settling down and that was probably the reason why both teams wanted to bowl first., That was evident, the temperature went down, it got cooler and as the wicket settled down, the ball started to come nicely onto the bat. I was just having fun out there, hitting boundaries whenever needed. We never allowed the run-rate to go under 10 rpo at any point of the chase and to do that in the end what Jacks did.”

Virat also addressed the questions about his strike rate, adding, “Not really, all the people who talk about strike-rates and me not playing spin well are the ones talking about this stuff. For me, it's about winning the games for the team and there's a reason why you've done it for 15 years, you've done this day in and day out, you've won games for your teams, I'm not quite sure that if you haven't been in that situation yourself, to sit and talk about the game from the box. For me, people can talk about their assumptions day in and day out, but those who have done day in and day out, they know what's happening and it's a kind of muscle memory for me now.”

He concluded by saying, “We wanted to step up for ourselves, play for our self respect. We can't be playing the way we played in the first half of the tournament, we wanted to see the ball as well, we are attacking way more, the fielders are putting their bodies on the line, that's the way we want to play. We haven't been up to standards so far except the last two games, but we just want to continue the same way, we have a great atmosphere in the dressing room. We want to play for ourselves, have some self respect as to why we're playing at this level and also for the fans who've been supporting us.”