IND vs SA: Virat Kohli hits fifty in final, equals Sangakkara, Samuels for T20 World Cup record | Cricket News
India batter Virat Kohli regered his first half-century of the T20 World Cup 2024 series in the final against South Africa at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados on Saturday.
After opting to bat first in the final, India suffered early setbacks when captain Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant and Suryakumar Yadav fell within the Powerplay. Joining forces with Axar Patel for the fourth wicket, Kohli propelled India’s innings with a watchful knock. The duo put up 72 runs for the fourth wicket before Axar fell on 47.
He got to his second fifty in a T20 World Cup final in as many appearances. Kohli reached his fifty off 48 balls in the 17th over of the innings. Kohli immediately switched gears with a six and four off pacer Kagiso Rabada. Kohli eventually fell on 76 in 59 deliveries, the second-highest score an Indian in a final.
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Kohli equalled Marlon Samuels and Kumar Sangakkara as the only three batters to record multiple fifties in men’s T20 World Cup finals.
In the 2014 T20 World Cup final, Kohli led India’s batting against Sri Lanka on a sluggish Mirpur pitch. However, his 58-ball 77 run went in vain as Sri Lanka clinched their maiden title with a six-wicket win.
Kohli had endured a lean patch throughout the tournament starting with the group-stages in New York. Kohli started the tournament with three single-digit scores, including a duck against United States. In the Super 8s, Kohli only added 61 runs in three innings while falling for another duck against Australia. He had incidentally become only the second Indian batter to be dismissed for duck twice in a T20 World Cup series.
Kohli walked into the final with only 75 runs in seven innings, the lowest aggregate for any India batter who had faced at least 75 balls in any edition of the tournament.
The former India captain, however, is the most successful batter in the tournament with 1266* runs in 34 innings with 15 half-centuries.
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