‘He is definitely going to…’
With his knock of 84 runs in India’s four-wicket win over Australia in the Champions Trophy semi-final in Dubai on Tuesday, Virat Kohli became only the second batsman in the world to cross the 8,000-run mark in ODI run chases. Sachin Tendulkar currently sits at the top of the l with 8,720 runs in ODI run chases. Former Pakan pacer and captain Wasim Akram believes Kohli’s record is phenomenal and he is one of the greats of the game. The top five ODI run-chase scorers in world cricket are Tendulkar, Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Sanath Jayasuriya and Jacques Kallis.
“Look at these all names with the highest run chasers. Sachin, Rohit, Jayasuriya and Kallis. There are the greats of the game and Kohli is definitely going to pass Sachin Tendulkar the way it looks like. Kohli’s average is only second to MS Dhoni. Dhoni got close to 100 and Kohli’s average is close to 90. That’s just phenomenal,” Akram said during the show The Pavillion on Ten Sports.
While India scored their fourth win against Australia in the knockouts of ICC ODI tournaments on Tuesday, Australia suffered their first loss in knockouts of the ICC Tournament in ODI format with their last such loss coming in the quarter-final of the 2011 World Cup.
Story continues below this ad
Australia was playing with rookie pacers Nathan Ellis and Ben Dwarshuis and were looking set to get a score in excess of 300 runs with the team placed at 198 for 4 with 14.4 overs left in their innings. Akram saw the fall of wickets of Steve Smith and Glen Maxwell in succession as the key factor in Australia’s loss resulting in a below-par score the world champions. “If they are not here, it’s not a valid point to discuss their absence. But then they are the leading bowlers of the cricketing world. Josh Hazelwood, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins could not come, two were injured and one did not come due to personal reasons. But Australia did not help their cause. Like Steve Smith said, if the score was 290-300, then they would have got a chance. These two wickets of Smith and Maxwell made them score a below-par score,” said Akram.
Akram’s compatriot and former team-mate Waqar Younis too echoed the same thoughts. “When you have weak bowling, you need 25-30 runs extra than the par score. Like Wasim bhai said, Australia could not achieve that and it hampered them. The kind of position they were in, if Glen Maxwell would not have played that shot, things would have been different. Maxwell and Pandya are in a way similar and I would not say hit and miss. But they both can even score a 200 on their day. Also Australia did jot take their chances in the field,” said Younis.
