On Sunday, in front of a packed stadium in Mohali, Virat Kohli did it again. This time, India reached the semifinal of the ICC World Twenty20.
Kohli has publicly admitted that he prefers chasing to setting up targets. But when he bats second, he bats on another level. Against Australia in a mustwin game, Kohli showed why he’s one of the best in the world.
India had been losing the match for a long, long time. They started disastrously, conceding 53 off the first 4 overs of the Australian innings as Usman Khawaja and Aaron Finch went on a rampage. From there, the team did well to pull back the Aussies to 160 in 20 overs.
But old woes resurfaced when India batted. Shikhar Dhawan has established himself as an opener but he has yet to prove that he can bat well on anything but a flat track. Rohit Sharma once again failed to convert a start. Suresh Raina, despite spending over a decade playing for India, is still poor with the short ball. Yuvraj Singh is a shell of his former self and his career should clearly be over now. Given these problems, India had slid to 94/4 after 14 overs when Dhoni walked out to bat.
MS Dhoni is no longer as explosive a finisher as he once was. But Virat Kohli is at the peak of his career, and he’s making you notice it again and again.
Figure this: India needed 96 from 10 overs, then 67 from 6, then 59 from 5, and then 44 off 20 balls. At 44 off 20 balls the match seemed over. Dhoni hit a four. 44 off 20 became 39 off 18. Faulkner was taken for a six and two boundaries by Kohli in a critical 18th over. Following this, Kohli smashed four boundaries off CoulterNile in an epic over that sealed both India and Australia’s fate.
Numerous batsmen in the history of limited overs cricket have pulled off a heist like this, but few have done it with such consistency, even inevitability. You knew it was always going to be chased down while Kohli was still batting. The boundaries that suddenly began to flow off Kohli’s bat as if they were preordained had more than a touch of arrogance, and genius written all over them. He knew when to hit them, he knew where and he knew how. Once he had started hitting those boundaries you knew Australia weren’t going to stop him. And they didn’t.
