Former Australian captain Aaron Finch supported Virat Kohli in continuing his usual batting instead of playing aggressively like Rohit Sharma in the upcoming IPL 2025 season. Rohit has changed his batting style in white-ball cricket since 2022, preferring to take the aggressive route from ball one as well. The move has helped him to get success, as Team India have reached the final of the last three ICC white-ball events, including winning the previous two—the 2024 T20 World Cup and 2025 Champions Trophy as well.
In an interview with the PTI, Finch said (quoted by Hindustan Times): “When you look, when Rohit’s made that conscious decision, he’s had Virat coming in behind him at number three. So there’s an ability for him to say, you know what, I’ve got the guy behind that will fix any mistakes that I make. But you can’t have everybody in the team just looking to swing for the fences from ball one. So that’s a really, that’s a good question. And I understand that Rohit’s done that, and he’s been very successful in doing it.”
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He shared, “Maybe if his (Kohli) strike rate goes from 140 to 150, he can absolutely do that. No issues whatsoever. But how many times has he been in a situation where he’s had to almost dig RCB out of the hole because everybody else has fallen around him?”
Aaron Finch also warned RCB and their fans about how a higher strike rate could lead to a drop in Virat Kohli’s consistency as well. However, Kohli is the IPL’s all-time highest run-getter with 8,004 runs, including eight centuries, in 252 innings.
“Well, the question you have to ask yourself is, do you want 700 or 800 runs or are you happy with 400? Because if you want Virat to strike higher, he can absolutely do that. But with that comes a higher risk and the consistency will go down. So I don’t think that there’s a huge need to change. Maybe it’s changing the tempo up slightly. But overall, I would bank on his runs every single day of the week. And then you start to build your team around somebody like that,” Aaron Finch concluded.
