TimesofIndia.com in Dubai: The script has become so familiar that it sounds boring now.
Virat Kohli, run chase, big pressure game…
We have heard this before, seen this before; but every time he puts on a chase masterclass, the instant reaction is to go wow! Not once does he look out of control and eliminates risk to a level where the knock feels like a soothing spell of a breeze on a dry afternoon. There is no sense of panic or pressure in his approach as he aces the calculation game to perfection and builds the innings one phase at a time.
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A solid start, busy acceleration and then the late flourish follow. One phase at a time, he injects so much stability in the chase that the dressing room can afford to comfortably keep their feet up as long as he is in the middle. 264 in Dubai was a par total but was always going to be a tricky chase in the high-pressure knockout clash against a side which has spoilt India’s party plenty of times in the past. The early departure of openers Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill didn’t help, but Kohli rarely disappoints when the stakes are as high as they were today.
With Shreyas Iyer, he steadied the ship and kept the required run-rate in check when captain Steve Smith tried to choke the period with a heavy dose of spin in the middle-overs. The two right-handers ran hard, put the loose balls away and frustrated Australia for close to twenty overs. After a watchful period, there was a lot of fluency in the manner in which they operated and Kohli even managed to outpace his batting partner. They put on a 91-run stand off 111 deliveries with Kohli scoring 46 off 49 and Shreyas contributing 45 off 62 deliveries.
While both remained solid, the difference between the two was Kohli’s ability to rotate strike and find those gaps when the tweakers were rushing through their overs. The fifty was brought up with a boundary, an aggressive gesture followed and even after Shreyas’s ill-timed dismissal, Kohli was never losing focus of the target as 265 was the magic number and whatever happened in its pursuit was going to be incidental.
Axar Patel came, did his job of keeping the target within reach and left. That 44-run stand denied Australia the opening they were desperately looking for in the business end of the chase, and it was just a matter of time before “Kohli, Kohli” chants reverberated in the stands. It wasn’t a packed house, but there was enough voice from the stands to build the anticipation for ODI hundred No. 52. They found their voice after a spell of near silence when the middle-overs slowburn was underway and put on a real show when Kohli entered the 80s.
Every run was cheered, every delivery became an event, but there was an anti-climax in store when the set batter miscued the big hit off Adam Zampa to Dwarshuis at long on. Silence took over again, and Kohli literally dragged himself to the change room.
Another hundred was there for the taking, the team was within striking distance of sealing the win. But the right-hander, after controlling and dominating the run-chase to perfection, couldn’t be out there when the side crossed the finishing line. The ending of the script wasn’t the usual one, but the rest of it remained on familiar lines.
Brief Scores: India 267/6 in 48.1 overs (Virat Kohli 84, KL Rahul 42*; Nathan Ellis 2/49, Adam Zampa 2/60) beat Australia 264 all out in 49.3 overs (Steve Smith 73, Alex Carey 61; Mohd. Shami 3/48, Varun Chakravarthy 2-49) v India
