Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly hailed Virat Kohli as the best player in ODI history, despite rumors of a rift. After openers Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill were dismissed cheaply, India’s fate in the ongoing World Test Championship final 2023 was reliant on how the batting maestro fared in the crucial final clash.
Sourav Ganguly Hailed Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli was unbeaten on 4 alongside Cheteshwar Pujara at Tea as India trailed by 432 runs after the Aussies were bowled out for 469 in their first innings. Sourav Ganguly, who was doing his commentary duties, heaped praises on Kohli and also advised him to leave the ball outside off stump in the tricky conditions at the Oval in the WTC Final against Australia.
Ganguly said that Virat knows how to bat in tricky situations as he has a good record in Test and best-ever in Test cricket. He said:
“India will have to make sure that the new ball starts getting older. because batting becomes a bit easier when it starts getting older. It’s only seven overs old at this stage and hopefully, they can battle it. Pujara has been in this situation before, Kohli has been in this situation before.”
“They both have looked solid for whatever little bit they have played. But it’s about batting for a longer period. Batting for six hours, batting for eight hours, and seeing the team through. You look at Kohli’s record once the opposition scores more than 400. Six hundreds, average is 92.8, 1200 Test runs and I think us, the dressing room, and Kohli himself wouldn’t mind that six is to be seven Test hundreds.”
He added: “In the commentary, I was talking about an innings which I saw against James Anderson in 2018 when India came in for a five-match test series. Kohli got a hundred in the second innings at Birmingham. It was an inning of discipline. He left deliveries outside the off stumps as he has already done today a few times just before tea.”
“He knows how to score runs in this condition. He is a great player. His test record is very good. His One day record is probably the best ever in the history of ODI cricket and he will know what the situation requires.”
While Ganguly was all praise for the Indian batting maestro, however, Kohli’s fans on social media took it otherwise and started trolling him left, right, and center. There were many who blamed him for ‘removing’ Kohli from the Test captaincy of India.
Check out the reactions of the fans:
Talking about Kohli’s performance, there were a lot of expectations from the former captain, especially after Rohit and Gill were dismissed. However, he also failed to live up to the expectations and was dismissed after scoring just 14 runs.
WTC Final XIs
Australia XI: David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey(w), Pat Cummins(c), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Scott Boland
India XI: Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Srikar Bharat(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj
