The wait for an ICC trophy for India has ended after a gap of 11 years, since they won the Champions Trophy in 2013, while their other wait for a T20 World Cup too has finished after 17 years. On both occasions, Virat Kohli stood there like a rock on the big stage to handle the pressure and expectation.
Coming into the final of the world event, India was unbeaten, but that didn’t allow the world to put Virat Kohli’s struggle in the tournament unnoticed. In seven innings coming into the competition, the former India captain has smashed 75 runs in seven innings at an average of under 11, and a strike rate of exactly 100.
But when things were not under control for the blue brigade, having already lost three wickets in the fifth over of the morning, the need of the hour was to respect the conditions and keep an eye on how the track was behaving. There is none better than Virat Kohli to carry the team in those vital moments.
‘I let myself down, I need to be better’- Virat Kohli
With the change in how the T20s have been played so far, India were needed to come up with a new plan and an aggressive mindset, which they did and that’s where Kohli looked to smash the new ball bowlers from the start.
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He was coming into the Indian Premier League with great form and rhythm, but playing the whole group stage of the tournament on the tricky batting surfaces of New York, he lost the mojo and the sweetness of his bat.
Moving into the Caribbean for the ‘super eight’ round of the competition, the job for Kohli still was the same. And he stood there too. When he smacked Reece Tropley for a six over deep mid-wicket in Guyana against England, it could have easily knocked the next ball for a single, but the 2.0 version of Virat Kohli charged for the next two deliveries, which saw his stumps getting rattled.
But during the final at the Kensington Oval, in Bridgetown, Barbados, with India already losing three wickets, Kohli could easily play his normal game. However, a very off-color first over from Marco Janse has already seen him dealing with three boundaries. Now he decided to take time.
In his next 35 deliveries, he didn’t smash a single boundary in the middle, but only five of those sets were dots, and that never puts pressure on him. Axar Patel, from the other end, was smashing the balls for boundaries and sixes. Once the latter got out, Shivam Dube did the same too.
Virat Kohli celebrated his fifty in 48 balls, which without a shade of doubt was his slowest of the T20I career. Once he reached the state where he felt he could take on the bowlers, he punched Kagiso Rabada straight down the ground for a six, before pulling him through square for a four. The score reached 176, as Kohli ended up with 76 runs in 59 balls.
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The way India managed to keep themselves calm for that total, and ended up on the positive side with a seven-run margin, Virat Kohli’s innings felt like a masterclass calculative knock. At the end of the game, he revealed his chat with the head coach Rahul Dravid, during the time he wasn’t firing in the tournament.
‘Obviously, you have to move out of your comfort zone sometimes. In my mind, it was like no or never. I have to embrace my role and perform.’ Virat Kohli expressed. ‘When I couldn’t perform, I told him (Rahul Dravid), ‘I let myself down. I need to be better. As I said, everything was just meant to be.’
He finally announced his T20I retirement at the end of the game, after receiving the ‘Player of the Match’ award.