Former Indian batter Robin Uthappa believes Virat Kohli has been able to get the best out of himself in the IPL after stepping away from the captaincy. Kohli scored 675 runs in 16 matches of IPL 2026 at an average of 56.25 and a strike rate of 165.84.
Thus, he played an instrumental role in taking RCB to glory in the season. Furthermore, he scored 75 runs off 42 balls in the summit clash against Gujarat Titans.
Moreover, he scored 657 runs in 15 matches of IPL 2026 and played a key role in taking his team over the line for the first time in the IPL.
Robin Uthappa said on the CommBox TV YouTube Channel, “This era of expressing yourselves more has unlocked him. But the captaincy not being on him anymore has unlocked him the most. When he was captain, he was so driven to take the team to victory by himself. Because of that, he played a certain way to produce results that he wanted to for himself and for the team. Today that doesn’t exist for him.”
“That took a while and I remember there was a period of wilderness for him, where he was trying to find where he fell in the whole scheme of things within the group. Once captaincy went away from him, for a period it almost felt like he felt lost and without purpose. That affected his form and his demeanor a bit. He then went soul searching and became even more spiritual. Then, he finally found a place where he can exist.”
Uthappa said Kohli took a lot of burden on his shoulders to win the match for India on his own but he has been able to handle it better since stepping down from the captaincy role.
“When he was young, he saw India regularly losing matches. So he probably said to himself that when he played for India, he would win matches for them by himself. That became his primary driving force as a batter. And he overextended on it a little bit. But the release from being a leader to playing a role for the team has been a delight to watch,” said Uthappa (via the aforementioned source).
Kohli will be seen in action in the ODI series against England, subject to fitness clearance.
