India batting great Sunil Gavaskar questioned the manner in which India captain Rohit Sharma and ace batter Virat Kohli got out in their Asia Cup 2022 tournament opener on August 28 against Pakistan in Dubai.
Chasing a target of 148 runs to win the match. Rohit Sharma managed 12 runs, while Virat Kohli, in his 100th T20I made a sublime 35 in 34 balls on a tough pitch to bat on, after India lost KL Rahul for a golden duck.
Both Rohit and Kohli fell to left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz, caught at long-off while trying to go for a big shot and mishitting it. Finally, it came down to Hardik Pandya (33*in 17 balls) and Ravindra Jadeja (35 in 29 balls) to take India home in the last over with 5 wickets to spare.
Gavaskar also felt that Kohli should have ridden on his luck and got a big score. Kohli got a lifeline early on when he was dropped in the slips off Naseem Shah. He looked in good touch after a long time.
“Rahul played just one ball, so you can’t judge anything from that. Rohit and Kohli had the opportunity to bat for some time, they got runs. All these earlier times when people were talking about Kohli’s form, I kept on saying that he is not having any luck.
Today, he had a lot of luck, drop catches, and a lot of inside edges, which went so close to the stumps, he had the luck. But he did capitalize on it and played some very fine shots,” Gavaskar was quoted as saying to India Today.
“But one had expected that with the kind of start that he had, he should have got around 60-70. He got out immediately after Rohit got out. Both of them got out to forgettable shots. At that stage, those shots were not necessary as the asking rate wasn’t 19 or 20 for them to attempt sixes at that stage. It was required for them to get going, get to 70-80 and then maybe go for the big shots. That should be learning from this game,” Gavaskar stated.
Earlier Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s 4/26 and Hardik Pandya’s 3/25 rattled the Pakistani batting as they struggled to 147 in their innings, as Rohit Sharma had won the toss and chosen to bowl first.
