IND v WI 2019: Virat Kohli joins Mohammad Nabi with 12 Man-of-the-Match awards in T20Is

Kohli scored his T20I career-best of 94* off 50 deliveries.

Virat Kohli | Getty

Virat Kohli was at his best in the first T20I against West Indies at Hyderabad as the 'Men in Blue' chased down a huge target of 208 runs with 8 balls to spare. Kohli was awarded the Man-of-the-Match (MoM) for his match-winning knock of 94* off just 50 deliveries.

With this award, the right-hand batsman now has 12 Man-of-the-Match awards to his name in T20I cricket which is joint-highest with Afghanistan’s Mohammad Nabi. Interestingly, Shahid Afridi holds the second position with 11 awards.

It was not a typical Kohli innings in the beginning as he was seen struggling to time the ball and at one time, he was at just 3 runs off 9 deliveries. This all changed when opener KL Rahul was dismissed for a well made 62 off 40 deliveries.

But the 31-year-old kept his calm and once he started timing the ball, there was no stopping him. The right-hander stood till the end and scored his career-best 94* runs with 6 maximums and 6 boundaries.

READ ALSO: Virat Kohli advices young batsmen to not follow the first half of his Hyderabad masterclass

While talking about the game after the match, Kohli said, “It was just about keeping up to the game because I didn’t want to put KL (Rahul) under pressure, so tried to strike at 140 at least, but I couldn’t get going properly. But I started to get going after that over from Jason (Holder).

I analysed what went wrong and played accordingly in the second half of my innings. Whenever I play T20 cricket I am not someone who comes to the ground to hit the ball in the air to entertain the crowd. Our strength as a team is to strike in the latter half of the innings,” he added.

(With IANS inputs)

 
 

By Swapnil Shireesh Javkhedkar - 07 Dec, 2019

    Share Via