All eyes will be on Virat Kohli in the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2024. The batting superstar looks set to lead Team India’s charge with the bat once again.

The former India captain is in impressive form at the moment and recently finished the IPL season as the leading run-scorer. He became the first Indian player to finish the IPL season as top scorer twice. In a season where no other batsman could even reach the 600-run mark, Virat Kohli scored over 700 runs.

The right-handed batsman scored 741 runs with the help of a century and five and a half centuries. And while Virat Kohli is back to scoring runs for fun, things were very different during the 2020-21 phase. He was struggling to score consistently and failed to score a single century in international cricket in 2020 and 2021.

After the century against Bangladesh in November 2019, he finally scored another in international cricket in September 2022. Kohli’s struggle had left the entire cricket world stunned as one of the most prolific scorers in the history of the game did not He was able to deliver with the bat. .

Dinesh Karthik on Virat Kohli’s fight:

Dinesh Karthik, Virat Kohli’s former teammate in IPL and India, has explained the reason behind his struggle to do well in those two years. Speaking to Cricbuzz, the former wicketkeeper-batsman claimed that the empty stands due to the Covid-19 pandemic was a big reason behind Kohli’s struggle. Karthik explained how the crowd drives Kohli and his absence played a big role in the Indian superstar’s lean phase with the bat.

“It’s very disarming to start with when you don’t play with an audience. It took us some time when we played in IPL without an audience, it was very strange. When you know you got it right, you feel like you’re playing in a national game.

“It feels like that, there’s no one around to applaud, there’s no noise. Sometimes you just hear some applause from the dressing room. It’s very strange and it’s very difficult for people who have played international cricket consistently.

“I really think one of the reasons for Virat Kohli not doing as well as he usually does during that Covid phase is the fact that there were no people around.” Karthik said.

“He is someone who falls completely in love and you know he likes to be pushed by the crowd, and then people like Hardik Pandya, you can keep naming big names from India and also from other parts of the country.

“For Virat Kohli, I can say he would definitely have played a very important role, playing for no one would be strange. It’s one thing to play for a TV audience, which is great, but you don’t hear them applauding for you. It’s a very different feeling. play in front of nobody”, he further added.

Meanwhile, Team India will open their campaign in the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup on June 5 against Ireland in New York.