Virat Kohli has lit up this ICC T20 World Cup in Australia. He has played some exquisite knocks, accompanied by some captivating strokes, while Ricky Ponting was mesmerised to see him hitting the straight six to Haris Rauf.
Former Indian skipper and top-order batter Virat Kohli's spectacular straight six off pacer Haris Rauf's delivery will be one of the best shots ever played in the ICC T20 World Cup history, reckons legendary former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting. A flick observed the unique six under extreme pressure over fine leg, as it reduced the equation to 16 off the last over in one of the most unforgettable Indo-Pak encounters ever. With Kohli remaining unbeaten on a mystical 83 at the other end, Ravichandran Ashwin hit the winning runs off the final delivery, with India pulling off a success for the ages.
The two sixes from Kohli have already become part of cricketing folklore, and Ponting, too, looked back fondly at those absurd shots, especially the opening one. "I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. It's going to go down as one of the most remembered and talked about shots probably in - I won't say white-ball cricket history - but certainly T20 World Cup history," Ponting described to the T20WC website.
Pakistan skipper Babar Azam was forced to bowl left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz in the last over after Rauf, Naseem Shah, and Shaheen Afridi exhausted their quota. Kohli conceded that he had to uncover those sixes off Rauf to keep his team in the game. "They would have known, having done the calculations, that it would have to be the spinner to bowl the last over. That shows how important the last two balls of the 19th over were," declared Ponting.
"They [India] had to get boundaries on those two, or the game was done. What had happened in the previous over as well, Virat was setting up for something that would be full. You're setting up something for that full that he could smack back down the ground off the front foot," added Ponting.
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"He [Kohli] was almost halfway through his swing, and then the length is not there, and he was good enough to hold his shape and find the middle and hit it far enough to get it not just over the fence," he further researched. Ponting, third in the all-time run-getters list behind only Sachin Tendulkar and Kumar Sangakkara, communicated lightly that Kohli never endeavoured what Kohli managed in his celebrated career.
"I didn't do it. I mean, it wasn't on the back foot. It was just a back-foot length ball. He [Kohli] loaded up. His footwork was quite neutral when he hit it," he investigated. Ponting feels Kohli's leading fitness also allowed him to risk that stroke. "He stood up on top of the bounce of the ball, and there's a certain degree of skill involved, but you've got to look at the strength involved in a shot like that as well," he further scrutinised.
"All that strength came through his core. You've got a steady base, and the power to create and play that shot from there comes through your core. We've seen him with his cricket gear off. He's pretty fit. There's a lot of other players that just wouldn't have been strong enough through their core to do something like that, but he's one of the guys that can," concluded Ponting.
(With inputs from PTI)
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