Devdutt Padikkal, who scored an unbeaten 101 runs off 52 balls in Thursday’s Royal Challengers Bangalore match against Rajasthan Royals, admitted that it is a challenge to hit boundaries in the middle overs. However, the 20-year-old batsman said that the task was relatively easy in the partnership of skipper Vira Kohli.

The maiden hundred of Padikkal in Thursday’s match put a rest to all talks about his strike rate after a couple of his unimpressive outings. 

In the partnership of Padikkal and Kohli, RCB scored 181 runs and recorded a 10-wicket victory over Rajasthan Royals. 

Speaking at the post-match conference, Padikkal said, “It’s about the situation of the game, I always have a particular role that I have to play and I have to do that as well as possible.”

“Sometimes it can get challenging in the middle overs and it’s not easy to hit boundaries all the time,” the RCB player said.

Talking about his partnership with Kohli, he said they both were complementing each other well, which made it easier to hit those boundaries because they were “always rotating the strike.”

Asked what was on his mind when he was inching closer to his maiden century, Padikkal said he wasn’t thinking about his milestone as the win was more important.

Padikkal enjoyed a breakout IPL season last year followed by an impressive domestic campaign with Karnataka. In the ongoing edition of the T20 league, he has scored 137 runs in three games at a strike rate of 147.31.

“In the last two seasons, I’ve only looked to keep things simple and I have not tried to do anything different and special. I have tried to stick to my process, be as consistent as possible and thankfully I have been able to do that,” said Padikkal.

The youngster, who had tested positive for COVID-19 before the start of the tournament, had missed out on the first match against defending champions Mumbai Indians.

However, Padikkal was back in the RCB playing XI from their second game.