IPL 2018: Not here to spy on Virat Kohli’s game - RCB’s England pacer Chris Woakes

It is easy to lose faith in players in the Indian Premier League (IPL) when the going is not good. England pace bowler Chris Woakes should know, having been kept out by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) as it has struggled for another season.

The 29-year-old, one of 12 England players who are featuring this season for the IPL experience, played in RCB’s first five games taking eight wickets, but hasn’t played since his 0/40 on April 21, when Virat Kohli’s side beat Delhi Daredevils.

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Since then, RCB have played five games, winning just one. It has been a sad tale for the team, after ending last in IPL 2016. Woakes played for Kolkata Knight Riders last year and said from his experience even the finest can come up short.

“We’d liked to have done better, but in certain games we haven’t been quite 100 percent. In a world class competition like IPL, you need to be 100 percent every time, 80 or 90 percent is not going to be quite good enough. Unfortunately that is the position we find ourselves in.”

RCB, who have six points from 10 games, must win all four remaining games starting with Saturday’s tie against bottom-placed Delhi Daredevils at Ferozeshah Kotla and then hope other results go their way.

“We still played some really good cricket in patches; we’d like to put in some more complete performances and hopefully we can start that tomorrow.”

VIRAT’S SURREY STINT

Woakes is likely to square up against India, and his RCB skipper, as India begin their England tour in July. The Warwickshire player felt Kohli turning out for Surrey will be good for County cricket as much as it will help the India skipper iron out his flaws facing swing bowling.

“I am not here to spy on Virat’s weaknesses,” he joked. “But sharing the dressing room with him has been a great experience. “We expect some good challenges against him back in England. It is great he is going to play for Surrey, it will not only make the competition stronger, playing against world class players is only good for the County game.”

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STOKES WILL FIRE

Woakes is confident his England teammate Ben Stokes, the most expensive buy ahead of IPL 2018, will shake off his patchy form for Rajasthan Royals. The all-rounder has scored just 174 runs in 11 games at an average of 17.4 and taken three wickets.

“Ben Stokes is a world class player ... I will never write him off; he still has four games left, and more if they qualify.

“He is a quality player. If you slip off the game against him, he will punish you.”

THE RISHABH FACTOR

However, Woakes doesn’t expect Rishabh Pant to produce another blinder like he did against Sunrisers Hyderabad, scoring 128 not out in a losing cause on Thursday.

“Fantastic innings, I only saw some of the highlights,” he said. “It is not nice to bowl at a guy when he is in that sort of form.

“(But) to play that sort of innings back to back is very difficult, we have to go away and do our plans on a good player that he is,” he said. “Once he gets in, it’s very difficult to get him out. T20 is a format where it takes one performance to win a game.”