Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar has his own way of analysing cricketing matters, and more often than not, hearing his opinions on various topics is quite refreshing.
On Thursday night, during the Lucknow Super Giants-Royal Challengers Bengaluru IPL 2026 match at the Ekana Stadium, fast bowler Prince Yadav unleashed a ripper and sent a great batsman like Virat Kohli back to the dug-out, utterly helpless.
The ball hit the pitch on the straight seam and cut back in and went on to uproot Kohli’s off-stump. It was a peach of a delivery by all means.
But Kohli looked stupefied, and he looked at the spot where the ball had pitched as if something was wrong there. Manjrekar has a theory on why Kohli did that, also bringing in Sachin Tendulkar’s name to stress his point. The master blaster used to do the same, especially toward the end of his career.
What Manjrekar has to say!
“Virat Kohli getting clean bowled by Prince Yadav, gives me a great insight into a champion batter’s mind. It was the same with Tendulkar. It’s not so much about how we got out. Look at Virat’s reaction when he gets out. The moment he gets out, he looks down at the pitch as if something untoward has happened. The pitch has played some trick on him.
“Tendulkar did that too, more so towards the end of his career; he would look down at the pitch and would think that the ball had kept low. And, you know, something wrong happened there. So what is happening here? The moment there is a little setback like that, they aren’t immediately looking within or being self-critical.
“They’re looking at other reasons apart from themselves. for what happened. And that, interestingly, is the trait of a great batter, because they’ve had such tremendous success over the years, their self-confidence is very high. So when they have a moment like this, that self-confidence doesn’t dip quickly.
“With lesser mortals, when something like this happens, the self-confidence gets shattered. They think, oh, dear, too slow and not a good enough player to defend that ball. Great batters will instinctively find another reason because their faith in their own ability is so high.
“And that is one reason why great batters are great as opposed to lesser mortals, who lose their confidence easily. So one big difference between a great player and a not-so-great player is that the great players handle their failures a lot better than the lesser player. And we saw in that reaction of Virat, and Sachin Tendulkar’s reaction in the past, that instinct is an important trait to be great,” the Mumbaikar explained.
That’s an interesting insight for sure. However, there could be more explanations, like they were surprised or embarrassed and were letting everyone know that they were not exactly at fault. Like, something happened to that delivery! It can be anything, but Manjrekar’s views are worth listening to.
