Virat Kohli showed signs of a return to form in his knock against Pakistan on Sunday in the Asia Cup 2022 encounter. But, don’t get too excited, a few good shots were like the sparkles he’d showed before as well.
It was quite a scratchy start, some good hits here and there, before the innings loitered into boredom and his usual struggles versus spin before eventually succumbing to spin His strike rate of 102 in his 34-ball 35-run innings further just encapsulated what Kohli has been in the past three years and what his struggles have been on the pitch.
Daniel Alexander roasts Virat Kohli once again
In the chase of 148, India lost KL Rahul on the second ball, reuniting the Kohli-Rohit pair. Kohli would himself have been dismissed for a second-ball duck, as he outside edged Naseem Shah to second slip, but the catch was spilled by Fakhar Zaman.
The scratchiness of him returning after a month-long break was seen as he inside-edged a couple of more deliveries but was fortunate that those didn’t hit the stumps.
Kohli did get a move on as he got a gift in short delivery from Shahnawaz Dahani which he pulled for four. And then another short ball, this time from Haris Rauf, which took Kohli’s top edge but flew away for six behind the wicket-keeper.
Kohli drove and pulled Dahani and Rauf for one boundary each to end the powerplay on a positive note. But Rohit was struggling at the other end scoring at much less than run-a-ball.
After the powerplay, though, both got stuck as Babar Azam deployed spin from both ends, eventually bringing Kohli’s strike rate down as well as the batter failed to find any boundary.
Rohit smoked Mohammad Nawaz for a maximum but in desperation to further increase the run-rate, the Indian skipper holed out to long-off. In Nawaz’s second over, Kohli too got caught at long-off, miscuing his shot after dancing down the pitch.
Fans on Twitter were really disappointed by Kohli’s dismissal especially given the batter had set himself in nicely and had batted at almost run-a-ball for a long period of time.
But, one among all was Daniel Alexander, who is well-known as a massive critic and troller of Virat Kohli.
Daniel Alexander took to Twitter to once again remind the fans of how many innings and how many days it has been since Kohli last scored a century – in November 2019 against Bangladesh. Daniel also labelled Kohli as a highly overrated cricketer!
“80 inns without an International century for Virat Kohli, last Int’l century was against Bangladesh without Shakib & Mustafizur, in India on 23rd November 2019. Kohli’s last 9 Int’l scores are 23, 13, 11, 20, 1, 11, 16, 17 & 35(dropped on 0). Kohli is massively overrated,” Daniel Alexander tweeted.
Here is Daniel Alexander’s tweet:
80 inns without an International century for Virat Kohli, last Int’l century was against Bangladesh without Shakib & Mustafizur, in India on 23rd November 2019. Kohli’s last 9 Int’l scores are 23, 13, 11, 20, 1, 11, 16, 17 & 35(dropped on 0). Kohli is massively overrated #Cricket
— Daniel Alexander (@daniel86cricket) August 28, 2022
