Prathiv Patel On The Immense Pressure Over Kohli: Former India wicketkeeper-now commentator Parthiv Patel believes that team veteran and icon Virat Kohli is under an immense weight of pressure and expectations all the time, something that his fellow ‘Fab-4’ compatriots would not know.
Kohli is the most prominent Indian batter of this generation. A modern-day great, the 35-year-old has done it all for the Indian Cricket Team. As far as global cricket is concerned, he is part of an elite club of batters, dubbed the Fab-4. Besides Virat, these include Steve Smith of Australia, Joe Root of England, and Kane Williamson of New Zealand.
These four have been at the forefront of great batting and records over the past decade. These players have the most centuries and the most runs across multiple formats.
Kohli has been a little out of form lately. Having not made big runs in the ODIs against Sri Lanka, he failed in both innings in the first Test against Bangladesh. His last great inning came in the final of the 2024 T20 World Cup, where he played a Player of the Match inning of 76 in 59 balls.
It is to no one’s surprise that Indian cricketers are under some of the most pressure for any athletes around the world. The weight of a billion expectations weighs heavy on these players, something that Kohli has been carrying for well over a decade.
In recent times, Virat has fallen a bit short in Test 100s in the Fab-4. In the last five years, he has been overtaken by all three in terms of Test tons. But this is more than made up for in ODI cricket, where Kohli has the most tons out of any batter in history with 50, which is even more than Sachin Tendulkar.
Prathiv Patel On The Immense Pressure Over Kohli
Speaking on the pressure of scoring centuries and performing in general, Parthiv Patel discussed how Virat Kohli is under immense pressure ahead of the second Test, saying,
“I don’t think he’s feeling that kind of pressure. And as you rightly mentioned that, I don’t think Smith or Joe Root, or Williamson can even think of the type of pressure he must be feeling. The pressure of expectation, that is huge. He has set his standard so high that even if he scores 60 or 70, that comes across as a failure. Because every time he walks in, we expect him to score 100. We expect him to play with that kind of intensity, which he has always been playing.”
In the same conversation, veteran Bangladesh batter Tamim Iqbal, who has been a commentator during the ongoing India vs Bangladesh, said that Virat Kohli in white-ball cricket is quite far ahead of other Fab-4 batters.
“And also, I think yes, in Test match cricket, the Fab 4 that we are talking about have done wonders. Because in Test match cricket, basically as a batter, you can’t win a game single-handedly. There are two innings and everything. But we also call them Fab 4 in white-ball cricket, and hands down, in what Kohli has done for India, the amount of games that he has won single-handedly, I’m pretty sure none of the other three has won that many of the games. And as you mentioned, because of the amount of pressure that he goes through, I think those three combined do not have the similar pressure,” said Tamim.
After winning the first Test by 280 runs, India won the toss for the second match of the series in Kanpur’s Green Park and decided to bowl first. Currently in session 2 of Day One, Bangladesh is at 107/3 as the match has been stopped due to rain.
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