India stalwart Virat Kohli has been facing his fair share of criticism of late for his topsy-turvy form with the bat, but has now found a supporter in one of his childhood heroes. Kohli, who averages just 25 with the bat in Test cricket in 2024, has received words of encouragement from former South Africa batter Herschelle Gibbs, who Kohli had named as one of his childhood heroes during his U19 days. Gibbs stated that Kohli should not be written off just yet.

“He got a test hundred a couple of weeks ago. You don’t suddenly become a bad player in a couple of weeks. It was just three weeks ago when he got a hundred,” Gibbs said, in an interview with Inside Sport.

“I think he’s a very proud cricketer, very proud of his statistics. He demands very high standards of himself. It’s wrong to write him off. He’s too good a player,” Gibbs added.

While Kohli did get a century in the second innings of the first Test at Perth, it came in probably the best batting conditions that have been throughout the series. Besides that knock, Kohli has failed to score more than 12 in any of his innings.

In fact, Kohli has been haunted by his age-old weakness of facing balls pitched outside the off-stump. However, Gibbs believes that Kohli must be working on his issue.

“Kohli would’ve probably sat down with the batting coach of India and he would know what he’s doing wrong. You don’t play for years and years and score 9,000 Test runs without knowing what you’re doing wrong,” Gibbs said.

“He loves the big occasion and the Boxing Day Test will be a huge occasion. I back him to get runs,” Gibbs concluded.

The Boxing Day Test kicks off on December 26, with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series evenly poised at 1-1.

Kohli had named Gibbs as his favourite cricketer in a video for ICC