Batting legend Sunil Gavaskar heaped praise on Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya for their match-winning knocks against arch-rivals Pakistan in a T20 World Cup 2022 match at MCG on Sunday (October 23).
Chasing 160 to win, the Men in Blue were in dire straits at 31/4 after 6.1 overs. Amid the pressure situation, Kohli and Pandya added 113 runs for the fifth wicket to take the match to the last over, where India needed 16 runs off Mohammad Nawaz.
While Pandya (40 off 37 balls) lost his wicket on the first delivery of the final over, Kohli (82* off 53 balls) held his end firmly and hit the left-arm spinner for six off a no-ball followed by a three to put India on the brink of victory, which Nawaz’s wide and R Ashwin’s eventually sealed.
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"Anything that finishes in the last ball of the 40th over means that the match has gone down to the wire. The spectators and everyone watching the match on television have got their paisa vasool.
"Some of the firecrackers that we saw on the ground from Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya's bat certainly meant that Diwali has come earlier," Gavaskar told India Today.
According to Gavaskar, Kohli wasn't out of form in the last three years and it was just that he wasn’t scoring centuries.
"He wasn't scoring centuries, he was scoring runs. Because of the lofty standards that he has set where he is scoring hundreds, when he doesn't get them, people say he isn't scoring runs. He was getting 60s and 70s and yes, that odd failure here and there, but every batter goes through it," he stated.
"The point is when Federer, Djokovic and Nadal don’t win semi-finals, finals, people think that they didn't do well. When Tiger Woods was in form, when he finished second or third, people said he didn’t do well.
“Anybody would be happy to get those 70s and 80s. These are the standards great players set and that's why we think that they are not at their best,” he further remarked.
Team India will next face Netherlands in their Super 12 match at the Sydney Cricket Ground on October 23.
(India Today inputs)
