Virat Kohli might have tweaked his batting approach a bit over the years, but former New Zealand captain Kane Williamson has little doubt that the champion batter will have a “big impact” on the fortunes of Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL 2025. Kohli has shown glimpses of his old form during the recent Champions Trophy, and will once again lead the RCB batting line-up from the opening slot. The 36-year-old will walk out for RCB against the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens on Saturday.
“No doubt he’s going to have a big impact again as he has done in almost every season of this tournament. I know he’s extremely motivated with RCB to push for a title and I’m sure this season they’ll be there or thereabouts,” Williamson told media during an interaction on Friday.
Williamson, who went unsold in last year’s IPL auction, observed that Kohli’s changed approach to the game will not affect his batting or effectiveness.
“It’s quite interesting as players kind of go into different stages of their career, different phases. He’s obviously been on the scene for a number of years but his style perhaps adjusts a little bit.
“But the hunger remains and the passion remains and we’ve seen that in his performances recently as well,” he added.
Williamson was tad sceptical about shining the ball using saliva to bring any noticeable changes in white ball cricket, but he hoped that it would give some breathing space to the bowlers.
“Over my time in white ball cricket it’s always been quite tough to shine the white ball. Whether it (saliva ban removal) has a large impact or not, I guess we’ll find out. I suppose any sort of help in shining might add some benefit.
“If it does swing then it really does bring the seam bowlers, the swing bowlers into the game a lot more. The fantastic pitches to bat on in general in the IPL, the boundaries are often on the smaller side.
“Having the ball swing a little bit more and if saliva can help that, I think will be great for the competition,” said Williamson, who is a JioStar expert.
After much deliberation, the BCCI has decided to retain the Impact Player rule for the IPL 2025, and Williamson said the all-rounders’ role might continue to be a little underwhelming.
“I mean, it does a little bit. The fact that you decide your team after the toss and therefore shape that Impact Player and how you want to approach the game really. I mean, you go in with five front-liners now and perhaps another sixth option.
“Most teams sometimes have even more than that. And then with the bat, most teams are batting to eight and even deeper. As we know in T20 cricket, the percentage of balls past seven that batsmen face are very, very low.
“So naturally that sort of tells you that the all-round option is perhaps still attractive but not quite as important as it has been in the past.” However, the Kiwi also saw the positive side of the rule.
“But then also there are some positives for sure that it’s changed the game. I saw some numbers recently that naturally run rates have all increased,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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