In his 19th season with RCB, Virat Kohli’s “drive and hunger” to touch new heights as a sportsperson hasn’t diminished one bit.

Kohli was RCB’s leading run-getter last year, scoring 657 runs when they won their maiden IPL trophy.

“I’ve been watching really closely (Kohli batting at nets), he looks on top of his game, he looks super fit. I was watching him do shuttles the other day, he looks light on his feet, very fit, very lean, very hungry,” said coach Andy Flower at the pre-match press conference.

“He’s always been very hungry and determined and I think that mental and emotional space that he’s in, where he’s very comfortable with himself as a person, but he’s also very hungry to drive himself as a professional sportsperson,” he added.

Kohli will be playing his first tournament since appearing in a home ODI series against New Zealand in January. But Flower did not read too much into it.

“We have chatted about that (gap) actually and I’ve always enjoyed watching top-class players practise as much as playing in games. When I was playing I used to enjoy watching Sachin practise for instance, the same goes here even though I’m coaching, I really enjoy watching the masters of their art do their thing.

“So, I think he’s in a really good spot and watching him time the ball and strike the ball in training, I think he’s at the peak of his powers. So, he’s aware of the fact that he’s playing less (cricket), but at the moment he looks at the top of his game,” he said.

Flower was also delighted to see the progress of Rajat Patidar as RCB skipper.

“It’s pretty amazing that in Rajat’s first year of captaincy he led RCB to the trophy, he’d only a little bit of captaincy experience before that, I think for Madhya Pradesh. But we did like what we saw when we saw him leading.”