Legendary batter Virat Kohli blasted a match-defining performance for Royal Challengers Bengaluru, but the star batter has admitted he is still not fully fit after a recent physical setback. In RCB's clash against Lucknow Super Giants at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Kohli, rather than featuring in the starting XI, was deployed as an impact player, which was the first instance in his long career that Bengaluru chose to utilize him in this capacity.
Meanwhile, Kohli showcased his trademark skills with the bat, scoring 49 and anchoring RCB's chase. He was the top scorer in Bengaluru’s comfortable five-wicket win. Later Kohli revealed that he has been dealing with discomfort in his knee, which he suffered during RCB's last match against Mumbai Indians.
"Yeah, much, much better than the last game. I'm still not 100%. My knee was a bit sore last game. Even health-wise, I've been under the weather for four or five days now. So yeah, just getting back up to my best," Kohli said at the post-match presentation.
"I started off well today, so I was happy with my intensity. Then again, would have liked to carry on and finish the game off. Sometimes you have to take the conditions into account as well, the pitch slowed down considerably, and I just wanted to probably keep going in the same manner, but yeah, in the end should have probably finished that one off as well."
Talking about the pitch, Kohli believed that the changing weather had contributed to the slow pitch.
"Yeah, it was slower than normal. If you saw, there was not enough grass on it. The last three or four days have been very, very hot. It's been very dry as well, so we thought it's going to be a dry, slow wicket rather than one of those bare ones that are tacky when we play in Chinnaswamy," Kohli said.
"So it was different, and hence the idea was to push the game away from the opposition and take the game away from them in the first five-six overs, and for those reasons the powerplay batting was important and hence I say that I was happy with my approach today. I was able to put the team in front early on," he added.