Mohali? Melbourne? Kohli’s your answer

Kohli pulled off a houdini against Pakistan at the MCG

Mohali, Melbourne, Australia, Pakistan. It doesn’t matter what ground is or who the opposition is. When you have Kohli in your team, you are always one up over your opposition. Seven years separates Kohli’s match-winning innings in Mohali and what he did to Pakistan today. But the way Kohli conjured today’s win makes it all look too easy as if time and age haven’t done their part to Kohli at all.

They questioned his inclusion in the T20 side, even the other formats as well, to that extent. But Virat Kohli showed once again, why he is still one of the best batsmen in the world, no matter what the format, surface or country. Kohli pulled off a ‘Houdini’ as he landed India an emphatic win in their opening fixture against Pakistan at the 2022 ICC T20 World Cup at the MCG.

There were serious concerns of La Nina taking the game away. La Nina did hit, albeit in Kohli’s form. When 28 runs were needed off eight balls which included two more balls off Haris Rauf, Babar Azam must have been a lot more relaxed. What ensued thereafter is history and Kohli will go down there, having played one of the finest chases in the history of the game.

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Kohli’s Melbourne magic is pure magic, not just because it draws parallels to the Mohali win or because it has been 7 years since Mohali. It’s because of what Kohli has had to endure in the past couple of years. To say the past couple of years has been tough for Kohli would be a severe understatement. While the rest of the world battled the trauma brought on by Covid-19, Kohli was put through fire for his dip in form. It reached a stage when everyone (myself) included, questioned his place in the team. Such was his repertoire for prolific scoring that the lack of hundreds became a yardstick for proving his worth. Each day that went by without a century, kept falling as nails on his proverbial coffin.

But this is Kohli we are talking about. When all else failed, and India were pushed into a tunnel of despair, Kohli was always the light, as he so often has been for India in the last decade. It isn’t easy to bear the hopes of over a billion people over your shoulders. Sachin did it for over two decades and towards the end of his career, the strain of it was all too visible on his face. But to say Kohli filled Sachin’s void, would be an understatement. He has lifted that weight to a different realm with people’s expectations rising every time he steps onto the pitch. It was only the first game of the tournament for both India and Pakistan, but what we witnessed today was nothing short of a display of greatness that you would expect from a final.