On This Day: Virat Kohli dismantled Pakan and ushered in the era of chase master | Cricket News
On this day in 2012, Virat Kohli smashed his highest ODI score of 183 against Pakan as a 23-year-old in the Asia Cup in Dhaka. Chasing a daunting total of 330, India pulled off a thrilling victory with 13 balls to spare thanks to Kohli’s brilliance.
Virat Kohli the batter had already established his repertoire for notching up more than half the team’s batting totals, as he did in this particular contest. The young Kohli belted 22 boundaries and one six. He came down on Pakan’s bowlers like a ton of brick.
Hafeez himself, faced the full brunt of Kohli the bowler. With wickets tottering at the other end, the then Pakan captain and opener had managed to stick in the middle till the 10th over. Dhoni had introduced Kohli as his sixth new bowler in the eighth over already.
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During the Covid-19, Kohli has reminisced the knock with R Ashwin in an Instagram live.
“Somethings are just meant to him. I remember Sachin and Sehwag had a great partnership and then Gautam Gambhir and I had one,” Kohli had said.
“Raina came in to change the momentum. In conditions that were not ours, although the pitch was good, I understood my game better. I realized a lot about my own game. I can have the belief of staying in the moment when things are tough.
This was also the game where India wasn’t exactly on top of their fielding as in one particular incident Kohli and Rohit collided against each other at the deep mid-wicket, upsetting then skipper MS DhoniStory continues below this ad
“MS wasn’t too happy about it. We were chasing 330, then we messed up a bit. We gave 3 away with that poor make. My right side of the head hit his shoulder,” Kohli laughed.
“The Pakan bowling attack was quite potent. They were challenging because of the variation they had- Shahid Afridi, Umar Gul, Saeed Ajmal, Aizaz Cheema, Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Hafeez. Ajmal was particularly dangerous as he was it his peak back then.”
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