He wears Virat Kohli’s jersey number 18 on his back, idolises the batting maestro, and hopes to play for his IPL team, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, someday. Delhi Premier League sensation Priyansh Arya, who became the first player to hit six sixes in an over in the ongoing tournament, said he was not paying much attention to his prospects of getting picked at the mega auction of Indian Premier League. Arya is currently the highest run getter in DPL with a mindboggling 602 runs in 9 innings, with two hundreds to his name. He has an impressive average of 75.25 and an astonishing strike rate of 198.0.

“Virat Kohli is my favourite, want to play for RCB. My favourite team is RCB, admire Virat Kohli a lot, I like his aggression. I also like to play aggressive cricket. He is my idol,” said Priyansh in an exclusive interview with PTI Videos on Tuesday.

Regarding the six straight maximums, he said, “I had this thing in mind that if a left-arm spinner comes on to bowl, I will attack him. After the fourth six, I started to believe that I can hit six sixes and will go for that. Ayush backed me and told me to go for the kill,” he reflected on his game.

Arya, who could become the highest run getter in one single edition of state T20 leagues in India, has his sights set on the DPL trophy. He praised captain Ayush Badoni for his leadership skills and said that he always backs everyone to go out and express themselves on the field.

“Badoni’s quite relaxed and doesn’t talk much, just tells us to express ourselves. The team’s environment is calm, coaches talk about the positives rather than negatives. The mindset is to win the trophy.

“The semi-final and final are the two most important matches so just taking it game by game,” said the youngster.

South Delhi Superstarz also made a few significant changes to their playing XI towards the business end of the tournament.

Captain Badoni himself was seen on the bench and that decision left South Delhi on the backfoot.

“Ayush took the risk for changes in the team. Our team will become strong again when he comes back. We were able to rectify where we were lacking and where we could perform better,” he concluded. 

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