IPL 2017: Ricky Ponting criticises Virat Kohli's performance, says he has done next to nothing

New Delhi, May 10: Legendary Australia cricketer and former captain Ricky Ponting is not at all happy with Virat Kohli's performance in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2017.

According to Ponting, who captained the Mumbai Indians' squad for two seasons, blamed Kolhli's poor show for Royal Challengers Bangalore's dismal show in the tournament.

Kohli, who missed initial games due to shoulder injury, has managed to score just 250 runs, including 3 fifties, from 9 games in the tournament so far. These figures are so unlike Kohli, who scored whopping 973 runs in the last season.

RCB were one of the most fancied sides before the start of the cash-rich league as they were the finalists of the previous edition.

The RCB side was studded with some of the best T20 cricketers in the world yet they managed to score just 2 wins from 13 games they have played so far, one game was washed out due to rain.

"They got on an amazing roll at the back end of last year's tournament when Kohli was playing out of his skin, de Villiers was playing well, Gayle was chipping in and Watson was doing a good job with bat and ball. But so far Kohli has done next to nothing, there's been flashes in the pan from Gayle and AB de Villiers, but the consistency just hasn't been there," Ponting was as quoted by cricket.com.au as saying.

Here's are few images of Kohli from this year's IPL:

Just 3 fifties for Kohli this IPL

This wasn't the best of IPLs with regard to Kohli's individual performance. He slammed just 3 fifties, 64 being the highest, this year.

Kohli smashed record 4 centuries last season.

Kohli gets clean bowled

Virat Kohli was dismissed by KXIP's Sandeep Sharma is this fashion. It was the first occasion when a bowler claimed all three wickets of RCB's Big three - Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers.

No run feast for Kohli in this year's IPL

Kohli, who missed initial games due to shoulder injury, has managed to score just 250 runs from 9 games in the tournament, so far.

Failed on both the occasions against RPS

Royal challengers Bangalore batsman Virat Kohli plays a shot during the IPl match played against Rising Pune Supergiant in Pune.

Change of shirt's colour too didn't help Kohli, RCB

Virat Kohli led RCB played with a green coloured jersey against Kolkata Knight Riders in their final IPL game at home (Bengaluru).

But the change of colour couldn't change his team's fortune as they went down against KKR in their last game at M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

The Tasman cricketer felt that KL Rahul's absence from the side was also a big reason for RCB's poor performance.

"KL Rahul is a massive loss for them, he had a terrific back-end to last season. He did some amazing things last year so him not being at the top has been a big loss", he further added.

As per Ponting, Kohli failed to inspire his team this time around with his leadership and that was also one of the reasons that his side couldn't perform as a unit.

With his IPL aspirations, this year, coming to an end Kohli should look for playing a good knock in his team's final league game of the season.

RCB will be locking horns with Delhi Daredevils at Feroz Shah Kotla on May 14 (Sunday) and the local boy, Kohli, must try getting some runs under his belt before Champions Trophy 2017.

OneIndia News