Kohli Walks The Talk, His Energy Bizarre At This Age, Says Ashwin
Bengaluru: Former off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin is all praise for Virat Kohli, saying the Indian stalwart continues to “walk the talk” with his unmatched energy and intensity despite his retirement from the Test and T20I formats.
Returning to T20 cricket for the first time since last year’s IPL final on June 3, Kohli showed no signs of rust and hit his 28th IPL half-century (69 not out from 38 balls) to power defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru to a commanding six-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in their 2026 season opener.
“He keeps talking,” Ashwin said on a JioHotstar show.
“It’s almost like he’s giving people a demonstration of how the game should be played, to play hard and to play the way it should be played. That stood out to me in terms of what Virat did.”
Kohli already had an excellent touch going into the IPL, scoring 93, 23 and 124 in the ODI series against New Zealand in January, finishing as India’s leading run-scorer.
The 37-year-old had also topped the charts in the previous series against South Africa in December, scoring 302 runs, including two centuries.
Ashwin also talked about the instances when he ran between the wickets to show how his energy remained outstanding despite his age and experience.
“I find him quite strange at his age. That’s what I tell him in our conversations. He was batting in the 40s, riding a partnership and RCB were slipping.
“He raced towards the first single, stood there and the other batsman hadn’t even reached halfway but he was already looking for a second. It was a 57-metre boundary down the leg side and that shows the enthusiasm he still brings to the game,” added Ashwin.
The leading Indian off-spinner and commentator also highlighted the performance of Jacob Duffy, who turned the tables after a woeful display in the recently concluded T20 World Cup.
Having endured a tough away campaign in the T20 World Cup, scoring over 10 runs in each over and managing just three wickets, Duffy bounced back in style with a dream IPL debut for RCB as the Sunrisers took 3/22 at Hyderabad to take the top spot.
He removed the dangerous opening duo of Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head and Nitish Kumar Reddy and SRH stumbled initially, triggering an early collapse before recovering to 201/9; this total proved to be below average in Chinnaswamy.
“When Jacob Duffy was selected at auction, I was probably the first person to say he was a great choice to replace Josh Hazlewood.
“He was the No. 1 bowler in T20 at the time. He had also taken a six-wicket haul in a Test match and was in the prime of his career.
“He bowled a lot in New Zealand and knows exactly what he is doing. What really stood out was that he could swing the ball both ways, but he didn’t try to do that against Abhishek Sharma.
“The first time he bowled full to Travis Head, he was pumped down the ground, he learned a good lesson. After that he stayed away from that length and bowled to very good areas.
“Tactically, RCB were superior and executed those plans beautifully. He was probably the reason why the score was kept under control. With around 400 runs on the day, it was still a low-scoring game by Chinnaswamy standards,” Ashwin added.
