Reece Topley, Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) speedster, opened up the need for overseas batters to step up and support Virat Kohli, highlighting Kohli’s significant workload in the batting department for the franchise in the ongoing 2024 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Kohli has been the key player for RCB despite the team’s current position at ninth in the points table with four defeats in five games as well. It is worth noting that the former RCB captain is currently leading the Orange Cap list, having scored 316 runs at a strike rate of 146.29 as well.

However, the ongoing season has been poor for captain Faf du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell, and Cameron Green. Du Plessis, who scored 730 runs from 14 matches last year, has scored 109 runs from five games this season as well. Maxwell has also scored just 32 runs as well.

“You can take away the fact that it is the overseas batters (only) and you can probably say, Virat has had quite a load in the run-scoring department. I do not think anyone needs to be an expert to sort of look at everyone’s performances and say they haven’t been up to scratch and that’s all aspects of the game, and obviously now we’ve had five games,” Topley said at the press conference as quoted by India Today.

“The exciting part is that it’s still relatively young into the tournament. There’s a lot still to play for, and what is exciting is that there’s a lot of time to turn that around and still showcase how good we are. At the start of the season, (the goal) is to qualify for the finals. So there’s still an opportunity to do that, we’re working hard to make that achievable,” he again added ahead of the game against MI on Thursday.