“If Kohli scores a century against LSG, who will say he had a bad season?” - Virender Sehwag on RCB batter’s big opportunity in IPL 2022 Eliminator

Former Indian batter Virender Sehwag reckons that Virat Kohli’s poor season will be forgotten if he comes up with a big knock for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the IPL 2022 Eliminator against the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on Wednesday.

The 33-year-old returned to form with a sublime 73 off 54 in Bangalore’s last league clash against the Gujarat Titans (GT). He was the player of the match as RCB won the game by eight wickets.

Having finished fourth in the league stage, Bangalore will take on LSG in the Eliminator at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Previewing the match, Sehwag told Cricbuzz that Kohli has a great chance to build on his form and guide his team to victory against Lucknow. He stated:

“If Kohli scores a century against LSG, who will say looking at his stats that he had a bad season? He will then end with 400-plus runs and that is considered as a good season. He has a great platform to excel as his team has reached the knockouts. Kohli can perform well and take the team forward.”

Kohli has so far scored 309 runs in 14 matches at an average of 23.77 and a strike rate of 117.94. He has two half-centuries to his credit.

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“They will be hopeful of getting past it this time” - Parthiv Patel on RCB losing Eliminator in previous two seasons

Wednesday’s match against Lucknow will be Bangalore’s third consecutive IPL Eliminator. While they lost knockout matches in 2020 and 2021 as well, former Indian cricketer Parthiv Patel asserted that the franchise will be a lot more confident this time round. Explaining the reason, he said:

“They qualified in the last two seasons as well. But they were losing matches as they approached the qualifiers and just sneaked through. They were starting well but losing games before the playoffs. Thus, they did not have the momentum heading into the playoffs. Things are different here. They won their last match and have tasted wins in a couple of games before that as well. They have been eliminated in the Eliminator twice before, but will be hopeful of getting past it this time.”

Parthiv added that while Bangalore needed help from the Mumbai Indians (MI) to finish in the top four, the Faf du Plessis-led franchise have had a good season overall. He said:

“The way RCB got into the playoffs, it may be considered by many as a backdoor entry. But the fact is they have played very good cricket right through this IPL. They were a little inconsistent in the middle, that's why they had to wait a little longer to confirm their qualification.”

Mumbai beat the Delhi Capitals (DC) by five wickets in their last league encounter in IPL 2022. As a result, DC were knocked out while RCB progressed to the playoffs as the fourth-ranked team.