N ANANTHANARAYANAN
Soon after another Virat Kohli special killed the final Twenty20 game as a contest on Wednesday, vanquished Sri Lanka were not heaving a sigh of relief that the Indian cricket team skipper will finally board a flight for home.
Instead, Sri Lanka cricket team’s interim coach, Nic Pothas, urged his players to learn from what they had seen of Virat Kohli. He hit three centuries, two of them back-to-back in the ODIs, and three fifties in all since India landed in the third week of July.
Kohli is having an effect on every cricket team in the world. Be it his aggressive batting while sticking to conventional shots or his fitness and competitiveness, he has set an example for players beyond his unit.
On Wednesday, even Kohli was feeling the effect of playing the third long innings in a week in Colombo humidity. He took mini drinks breaks, but didn’t stop from sprinting twos.
At one point, he seemed to even struggle to stand, but chided partner Manish Pandey for not taking a second run.
He scored 131 and 110 not out in the last two ODIs, and then said how fatigue forced him to take it a touch easy in the final game. But it was business as usual as long as he was in the middle.
Asked whether he had spoken to the Indian camp for its help to revive Sri Lanka, Nic Pothas said his players can improve by merely watching the 28-year-old rival skipper.
Kohli’s drive has convinced his players to buy into his approach, target peak fitness and play when given a chance, but still making those chances count.
There cannot be a better example for this than Manish Pandey, who raised 119 runs with Kohli in the T20 game, and hit his second fifty of the tour. Pandey was there to hit the winning runs.
Chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav, 22, the youngest in the team, isn’t surprised with Virat Kohli’s form and approach.
“He is a leader. He just leads from the front and gives you everything you want on the field,” he said, after taking 2/20 at the Premadasa Stadium.
He is a leader. He just leads from the front and gives you everything you want on the field...It is the same for training and in the nets, or off the field.