Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batter Rajat Patidar shared his admiration for teammate Virat Kohli by stating how he watches all the
net sessions of Kohli to work on the loopholes to impart in his game. However, Patidar faced a slow start to the ongoing IPL 2024 season but has returned to sublime form in the second half of RCB’s campaign as well. He scored a half-century in five of his last seven innings to help the team.

In an interview with Hindustan Times, Rajat Patidar said, “Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have always been my two biggest batting idols. I make it a point to watch every net session of Virat bhaiya and notice his foot work and stuff. I don’t go about making too many changes to my own game, but I try and see if I can add little things that I learn from him.”

“You’re filled with confidence when you’re batting with him in matches, you know the world’s best batter is at the other end. He guides me in terms of where the bowlers could bowl, and which areas we could target. There’s so much to learn from how he goes about his innings, how he thinks about his batting,” he further added.

So far, Rajat Patidar has scored 320 runs at an average of 29.09 and a strike rate of almost 180 in 13 games. However, RCB were at the bottom of the points table in the first half, winning only one of their first seven outings. However, the bounced backend reached the sixth place with a realistic chance of qualifying for the playoffs in the second half as well.

“Of course, it hurts when things don’t go your way. But to build some momentum, we spoke about wanting to play for pride. Everyone was always working hard, we never stopped believing. The atmosphere within the team was nice even when we weren’t winning, each player got support from the franchise as well. That was very important to be able to mount a comeback,” concluded Rajat Patidar.