The last time Virat Kohli batted at the Wankhede Stadium, he scored a brilliant century (117) as India beat New Zealand in the semi-finals of the ODI World Cup last November. Cut to the current scenario, and the last time Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) Kohli batted in the ongoing IPL, he scored yet another scintillating century (113 not out against Rajasthan Royals last Saturday).

Big guns need to fire 

In fact, Kohli has been in such sublime form that he has aggregated a mammoth 316 runs in five games, including one century and two fifties at an impressive strike rate of 146.29. As brilliant as these numbers sound on the individual front however, RCB’s IPL-17 campaign so far has been a collective failure, having lost four out of five games. The reason for this has been that Kohli’s batting colleagues haven’t quite fired. Some big names like skipper Faf du Plessis (109 runs) and Aussie big-hitters Cameron Green (68) and Glenn Maxwell (32) are desperately searching for impactful scores.