'You Want Applause for Strike-rate of 118...': Sunil Gavaskar's Furious Takedown of Virat Kohli for 'Replying to Outside Noise'

Sunil Gavaskar has responded to Virat Kohli taking a dig at commentators for being critical of his strike-rate in the ongoing IPL 2024, asking the Royal Challengers Bengaluru opener if the players don’t listen to ‘outside noise’ then why are they replying to it?

Last week, following RCB’s 9-wicket win over Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad, Kohli had launched a verbal attack on his critics for questioning his strike-rate compared to other openers in IPL.

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Gavaskar has justified the criticism and wondered if a batter wants to be applauded for scoring at a strike-rate of 118.

“Commentators questioned only when his strike-rate was 118,” Gavaskar said ahead of RCB’s second match against GT in IPL 2024 on Saturday evening. “I’m not too sure. I don’t watch too many matches, so I don’t know what the other commentators have said otherwise. But if you come and open and then have a strike of 118 when you get out in the 14th or the 15th over, I mean, if you want applause for that, that’s a little bit different. That’s different.”

“All these guys talk about, ‘oh we don’t care about outside noise’. Accha? Then why are you replying to any outside noise or whatever it is. We all played a bit of cricket, not a lot of cricket. We don’t have agendas. We speak about what we see. We don’t necessarily have any likes and dislikes. Even if we have likes and dislikes, we actually speak on what is happening,” he added.

The batting legend also took an aim at the broadcaster for repeatedly airing the clip of Kohli criticising their ‘own commentators’ and added it will be a disappointing if they continue to do so.

“I hope Star Sports realises that when that clip is shown, questioning the critics, the critics are your own commentators,” Gavaskar said. “For you to show the person belittling your own commentators, I’m not sure that’s a great thing. You need to realise you have shown it enough times, everybody’s got the message. I would be very disappointed if you show it once more.”