New DelhiAB de Villiers believes that Virat Kohli should not pay attention to the strike rate in the upcoming IPL.

AB de Villiers gave batting tips to his Jiggeri Virat Kohli, can do wonders in IPL 2025

South African legendary batsman AB de Villiers believes that Virat Kohli should play smart cricket instead of paying attention to increasing his strike rate in the upcoming IPL. He believes that the pressure of explosive batsman Phil Salat in the top order will reduce the pressure on him.

Kohli has been continuously performing well for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL but his strike rate has been a topic of discussion since the last two seasons. The franchise of Bangalore, however, has taken aggressive batsmen like England's Salt and Liam Livingstone, Tim David of Australia and Romario Shepherd of West Indies for this season of IPL in their team, which makes de Villiers feel that Kohli can play more free.

De Villiers said in the Geostar Press Room on Tuesday, “It seems that Virat is enjoying his cricket by batting with Phil Salat.”

He said, “Salt is an aggressive batsman and I think he will have to keep a lot of pressure from Virat that he has been doing so many rains and knowing when to play smart cricket.”

De Villiers, who played in the IPL for 11 session from RCB, said that Kohli will have to take charge of the batting department in this session. They said. “Virat needs to be the captain of the batting department in this tournament.