Former India National Cricket Team off-spinner Harbhajan Singh has made a bold claim, saying that the greatness of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) megastar Virat Kohli gets reduced at Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain MS Dhoni’s fortress – Chepauk.

The greats of Indian cricket – MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli – will be seen in action in the inaugural match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 on March 22 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai.

RCB will once again be overdependent on Kohli to deliver a sensational performance after being out of action for close to two months. The former RCB captain would be looking forward to starting his season on a positive note by playing a good innings against the MS Dhoni-led CSK.

Virat Kohli is the leading run-getter in IPL and he has scored runs across different venues in the country. However, he has not been able to perform well at Chepauk as he averages just 30 and has a strike rate of 111 at the venue.

Overall, Kohli, who hasn’t scored an IPL century at Chepauk, has scored 985 runs against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Speaking on Star Sports ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, Harbhajan Singh highlighted that batting at Chepauk becomes tough for opening batters.

“The greatness of Virat has been reduced in terms of his overall performance at that venue. It is a tricky venue to bat, especially as an opening batsman against a sort of weird tennis ball-type bounce.

“They’ve (CSK) got the great (Ravindra) Jadeja bowling stump to stump. He’ll get the oddball to turn and then the oddball to stay low. It’s really tricky,” Harbhajan told Star Sports.

The spin-bowling great advised Kohli to prepare himself to play an entire 20 overs if he wants to play match-winning innings.

“If he’s actually prepared to bat about 20 overs, then he can put together a match-winning performance because two hundreds at the accessible Chinnaswamy do not necessarily guarantee the same at Chepauk,” he said.

It’s important for him to have a season like 2016 – Harbhajan Singh on Virat Kohli

In IPL, Virat Kohli has overall scored 7263 runs in 237 matches at an average of 37.2 and a strike rate of 130. His best performance in the competition came when he smashed 973 runs in 16 matches, with 4 centuries, in 2016. The records made by Kohli in the 2016 season are yet to be broken. Several players have come close to it, but they haven’t been successful.

According to Harbhajan Singh, Kohli needs to replicate his 2016 heroics to play a role in Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) success. However, the spin-bowling great is skeptical of RCB winning their maiden IPL trophy even if Kohli has a stupendous season.

“It’s important for him to have a season like 2016, because if Virat goes on to score runs, the team will go forward. I don’t know if they will go on to win the cup or not.

“But with the brilliant individuals they have in their team — Virat, (Glenn) Maxwell, (Cameron) Green, and a few more like Patidar — I believe they have a lot of good batting. and everyone wants Virat to have a repeat of 2016,” he added.