Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli said he has a love-hate relationship with cricket after rediscovering his form in the Indian Premier League (IPL) in the United Arab Emirates

The prolific right-hander managed 14, one and three in his first three matches before smashing an unbeaten 72 in yesterday’s eight-wicket victory against Rajasthan Royals. “It’s a funny game you know. It’s an amazing game,” the India captain said after Bangalore recorded their third win in four matches.

“I was telling Jos (Buttler) when I was batting in there, ‘I love this game and I hate it too’. When you play so much of cricket, you do feel like at times you’re not in control of what you want to do … But when the team’s doing well, you feel like ‘OK, I’ve got some more space to figure out how I want to go about applying my kind of batting for the benefit of the team’.”

Head coach Simon Katich said he never worried about Kohli’s form. “The way we’ve seen it, we don’t look at Virat being out of form at all,” the Australian said after the match. “We see him batting in the nets, and we thought he looked magnificent in the first game. Unfortunately, he holed out in that one and then he missed out a couple of times. That can happen in T20s.”

Royal Challengers Bangalore next face Delhi Capitals tomorrow.