'It's Time To...': Kevin Pietersen's Message For Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore were knocked out of the playoff race in the Indian Premier League 2023. The team’s defeat against defending champions Gujarat Titans meant that it was another edition of the IPL without a trophy for Kohli. Though the RCB opener was in great form this season, his team could not manage to get past the victory line in the do-or-die fixture of Sunday.

Now, former England batter Kevin Pietersen has made a startling remark on Kohli’s future in the IPL. The England batter, who was once part of the RCB unit, hinted that it was time for Kohli to change his venture. Pietersen believes that a shift to Delhi, his home ground, can help the India batter.

“Time for VIRAT to make the move to the capital city…!,” Pietersen wrote.

Time for VIRAT to make the move to the capital city_! #IPL — Kevin Pietersen_ (@KP24) May 22, 2023

Kohli has been part of the Bengaluru-based outfit since the start of the IPL in 2008. He was the captain of the franchise from 2013 to 2022. Under his stewardship, Royal Challengers Bangalore reached the finals in 2016, but lost out to Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Interestingly, Virat Kohli had earlier revealed that in the first IPL auction, the Delhi franchise was interested in picking him, due to his performance in the Ranji Trophy and U-19 cricket, but ultimately went in for another player. In a podcast with RCB last year, Kohli said, “There was one conversation where I heard from people that the Delhi team was interested to go after me but the dynamics of their team turned out to be such that they went for Pradeep Sangwan - who was a left-arm seamer, amazing bowler, at that time he was our best bowler in U-19. So Delhi decided to go for him because they wanted their bowling strengthened and RCB picked me.”

The right-handed batter called his inclusion into the Bengaluru-based outfit an “important moment” of his life and claimed that he would not have things any other way.

Virat Kohli is the leading run-scorer in IPL history with 7,263 runs in 237 games. The right-handed batter has managed to create a record for the most centuries in IPL as well- seven. Kohli went past Chris Gayle’s record of six tons on Sunday. But, his efforts were in vain as a clinical Gujarat Titans managed to snatch the game by 6 wickets, thanks to Shubman Gill’s century.