Former Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik lauded India’s Virat Kohli for his amazing batting effort in their T20 World Cup 2022 opening match against Pakistan as his unbeaten 82* helped India pluck victory from the jaws of defeat.
Thanks to half-centuries from Shan Masood and Iftikhar Ahmed, Pakistan managed to post 159/8 in 20 overs after being asked to bat first. Arshdeep Singh and Hardik Pandya took three wickets each.
However, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah rattled the Indian top order as they were reduced to 31/4 in 6 overs. But then Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya consolidated the innings with a 113-run stand with Pandya making 40.
But it was Kohli who turned the game in India’s favor when 48 runs were needed in the last 18 balls. He hit Shaheen for three fours, Haris for two sixes, and then Nawaz for a six in the last over. Finally, India won the match by 4 wickets on the last ball, with Kohli remaining 82* with 6 fours and 4 sixes in 53 balls.
Lauding his batting effort in India’s win, Shoaib Malik said on A Sports: “Self-belief is the key to Virat’s success. As a batter, if you are under pressure while chasing, but at one point, the opposition will also come under pressure. That is what Virat does; he takes the opposition in that zone, where you will break. And then he executes his A game. He assesses the situation like no one else; that’s why he is so successful while chasing,”
“Even if he is batting first, his average must be equally good. But in the chase, he ticks all the boxes, he rotates strike very well, and he can hit the big shots, and the fascinating thing about his batting is that he plays shots in the gaps. He never panics, never changes his game, and you will hardly see him muscling the ball. He backs his game even when he is immensely under pressure,” said Malik.
Virat Kohli was struggling at the start of his innings with 12 runs in 21 balls but then hammered the Pakistani bowling hitting some huge lusty blows.
“Look at Virat’s sixes. He was striking those at the end as if he is a power-hitter, which he is not. But the number of balls he faced, he had an idea of what the bowlers were doing and how the pitch was behaving,” he said.
India will face the Netherlands on Thursday at the Sydney Cricket Ground and Pakistan will clash with Zimbabwe in Perth on the same day.
