The virat Kohli show continues,as India reaches semis.
"It was the Virat show," said a stunned Steven Smith with a mixture of admiration and resignation at the end of the match. That Virat Kohli doesn't fit the Twenty20 basher stereotype is well-known. A T20 masterclass from Kohli isn't similar to a sixes-studded knock like those of Chris Gayle's. His game in the format is not natural, it's very carefully chiselled and sharpened. At its core lies his running between the wickets. He doesn't often fill up a knock with boundaries. He prefers to start calmly but he knows the importance of not conceding dot balls, of turning the strike over as much as possible and then converting those ones into twos.
In the lead-up to the Australia game, Kohli had elaborated on what made him tick. There was no success mantra, he seemed to say while describing all that it took to make him successful. It was 'the basics' as mentioned in verbatim in every press conference. But very few can walk the talk, and even fewer can push that to the limit. So was this like Sachin Tendulkar's desert storm? It is a question that can be answered later.
Kohli — ranked second in the ICC T20 batsman rankings, one place above England’s Alex Hales — smashed Australia’s hapless attack around the Mohali Stadium, racing to an unbeaten 82 off 51 balls to see India over the line with five balls to spare.
With India requiring a daunting 39 off their final three overs, the 27-year-old cracked 32 off 11 balls to take his side to the brink of victory.
Kohli himself described the innings as his best while also adding that he was emotional at the moment. The focus lies in the end result and not so much on how he makes those runs. There are plenty more who lay the claim to be more 'entertaining' by playing the flashy scoops, switch-hits and reverse-sweeps. Kohli plays none of these and yet averages 123 in successful chases in T20Is. The congruence of being emotional and yet sticking to the textbook is an art. An art that has been mastered by Kohli.
Alright. But when his brushstrokes are hampered, Kohli knows that he has it in him to thrive with the ugly. He relishes the process of small taps building up to bigger things. But for a long while on a balmy evening in Mohali, his plans were being thrown off for no fault of his. He was getting increasingly irate when the going didn't go according to plan. When Yuvraj Singh was struggling with the running, you could see Kohli throw his head back in exasperation.
Here he was trying to construct an essay but the words were going haywire because of a faulty keyboard. There were moments where he could have actually thrown it away, like a mishit off Glenn Maxwell that just about carried over long off. Yuvraj's injured ankle was chaining Kohli down too. He knows that he isn't someone who can hit sixes at will. He thrives on those smaller moments while he is still trying to gauge the pitch, the bowlers and the conditions. It is an exercise in not making himself an encumbrance. But all the while there's also a solid method behind doing so. It's a plan best explained by MS Dhoni.
"In the middle overs it's all about running between the wickets. If you can take the double, that puts pressure on the fielders. And it pushes the captain to bring the fielder up slowly, slowly you bring them towards you and then you have the power to clear over their head. That's what really counts. One boundary and the captain doesn't know where to have them," said Dhoni.
It fits Kohli's batting style in T20s perfectly. It's comparable to relay-running where the team's pace is critical for the overall win but unlike that, this is tag-team. Kohli couldn't make up for lack of pace by simply pushing himself on. He was already there, he needed someone to match him and even push him. Who better than Dhoni for the job? The Mad Hatter had found his match in the mad dasher. Together the duo were scrapping hard, pushing each other and enjoying it all the while. Dhoni's penchant for running between the wickets is legendary now.
"I play unorthodox cricket, push it in the middle, run a two, if its in your area, hit it for a six. It's very simple," said Dhoni, describing his style. It isn't too dissimilar to Kohli's plans usually. And so the situation that the duo found themselves in was quite simply close to their heart. The square boundaries in Mohali are much longer than your average T20 ground and so they ran until their hearts were pounding. The asking rate was high, the pitch was not boundary-conducive. The best that they could do was run, nay sprint.
Rarely do the boundaries suffer in comparison to the running in this format but the situation was such that every run was being counted by the thousands at the ground. And so automatically, cheers rang in when the singles were converted into doubles. And this too was running in circles. Kohli was angrily calling in for the substitutes to come in between overs because he was bordering on exhaustion with all the sprinting. They couldn't keep up to pace with him like Dhoni but the crowd could. Kohli would later thank the crowd for spurring him on during those moments.
The pivotal moment was the 16th over bowled by Josh Hazlewood. Dhoni and Kohli had been in for six balls but the run-rate required was 12 an over now. They managed that with just one boundary and despite a dot ball in the over. Four balls were all twos, going towards usually quick fielders like Maxwell or strong-throwers like Aaron Finch. The sprints and dives were frenetic. The cheers were automatic. And Kohli was back in his comfort zone. That comfort zone comes out of knowing that he's making every ball count in his own way.
Once he settles into the zone though, Kohli has the game to score boundaries at will. It's another art that he's mastered in chases. When Kohli feels in control, the middle of the bat and the gaps start to widen. Those twos added was the actual cake while the boundaries creamed were cherries on top. For a lot of it Kohli had Dhoni to thank for here, it was he who had helped him get his mojo back and as Dhoni joked later, "He still needs to pay me, I was running his runs."
Just like that, two of the best chasers in limited overs showed exactly why they are so successful. Emotional fist-pumps apart, Kohli remained clam as ever while facing the ball. Dhoni was just being himself with the dashes across the pitch. To add to Smith's line, the victory came about only because two of the best ran the show as only few can.
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