Royal Challengers Bengaluru mentor Dinesh Karthik showered praise on Virat Kohli after he scored a fine knock of 54 runs off just 30 balls in the run-chase of 228 against Lucknow Super Giants at Lucknow on Tuesday.

Kohli once again laid down the foundation in the run-chase and RCB’s stand-in captain Jitesh Sharma scored a blistering knock of 85 runs off just 33 balls to get his team over the line.

Meanwhile, Kohli has been in tremendous form in the ongoing IPL 2025 and he has played an instrumental role in the success of the franchise. The talisman has amassed 602 runs in 13 matches at an average of 60.20 and a strike rate of 147.91 in the ongoing season.

After breaching the 600-run mark, Kohli became the first batter in IPL history to cross 600+ runs in a season on five occasions. IPL 2025 is the third consecutive 600+ run season for King Kohli.

“Genius par excellence, that’s the start, I’ll say for Virat Kohli. Across 18 seasons, he already averages, not averages, he’s got 9000 runs, which is 500 runs a season. People managed to get those 12 seasons,” Karthik said while speaking after the match.

“Hayden has got it a few times more, but it is such a hard ask. But for him to come churn out runs every year, have that motivation, even in warmups, the way he feels. I was just hitting a few balls to him, the speed at which it comes back in the mid, it tells you the man has got so much passion,” Karthik added.

Meanwhile, RCB ended the league phase at the second place in the standings with nine wins, four losses and one no-result.

RCB will take on Punjab Kings in the first qualifier at New Chandigarh on Thursday.