With Kohli staying unbeaten on a magical 83 on the different finish, R Ashwin hit the successful runs off the ultimate ball, as India pulled off a win for the ages.
With Kohli staying unbeaten on a magical 83 on the different finish, R Ashwin hit the successful runs off the ultimate ball, as India pulled off a win for the ages.
Virat Kohli’s sensational straight six off an excellent fast Haris Rauf supply will go down as one of the most effective shots performed in T20 World Cup historical past, reckons Australian legend Ricky Ponting.
The particular six in excessive stress was adopted by a flick over superb leg, decreasing the equation to 16 off the ultimate over in one of the most memorable Indo-Pak contests ever.
With Kohli staying unbeaten on a magical 83 on the different finish, R Ashwin hit the successful runs off the ultimate ball, as India pulled off a win for the ages.
The two sixes from Kohli has already change into half of cricketing forklore and Ponting, too, regarded again fondly at these outrageous strokes, particularly the primary one.
“I’m not sure what all the fuss is about,” Ponting stated in his inimitable fashion earlier than raving over the primary six.
“It’s going to go down as one of the most remembered and talked about shots probably in – I won’t say white-ball cricket history – but certainly T20 World Cup history,” he informed the T20 World Cup web site.
Babar Azam was pressured to bowl left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz in the twentieth over after Rauf, Naseem Shah and Shaheen Afridi completed their quota. Kohli himself had admitted that he needed to discover these two sixes off Rauf to maintain his group in the sport.
“They would have known, having done the calculations, that it was going to have to be the spinner that was going to bowl the last over. That just goes to show how important the last two balls of the 19th over were,” stated Ponting.
“They had to get boundaries on those two or the game was done. What had sort of happened in the over previous as well, Virat was setting up for something that was going to be full.
“You’re organising one thing for that full, that he might smack again down the bottom off the entrance foot.
“He was almost half through his swing and then the length is not there, and he was good enough to hold his shape and find the middle and hit it far enough to get it not just over the fence,” he stated referring to Kohli’s second of magic.
Ponting, who’s third in the all time run getters listing behind solely Sachin Tendulkar and Kumar Sangakkara, stated on a lighter word that he by no means tried what Kohli executed in his illustrious profession.
“I didn’t do it,” Ponting stated with amusing.
“I mean, it wasn’t on the back foot, it was just a backfoot length ball. He sort of loaded up, his footwork was quite neutral when he hit it.”
Ponting feels Kohli’s supreme health additionally allowed him to try that stroke.
“He stood up on top of the bounce of the ball, and there’s a certain degree of skill involved in that but you’ve got to look at the strength involved in a shot like that as well.
“All that power got here by his core. You’ve acquired a gentle base and the facility to create and play that shot from there, comes by your core. We’ve seen him along with his cricket gear off, he is fairly match.
“There’s a lot of other players that just wouldn’t have been strong enough through their core to do something like that but he’s one of the guys that can,” he concluded.
