Virat says India didn’t deserve to win Kohli goes past Azharuddin as fifth highest rungetter in ODIS for India
TABLES TURNED Spinners fail in damp conditions as SA cash in after Kohli chooses not to bring on pacers at death
improvisation by South
African batsmen. Klaasen and Dhawan agreed Kohli was not entirely wrong in persisting with them.
“I think how this series went led them to bowling their spinners for the remaining overs. But I was surprised,” said Klaasen.
Dhawan said, “The captain thought they were taking chances against the spinners. At that time, we needed wickets. Because the wicket was such and the ground was wet, we couldn’t have won by just stopping runs. You take risks, sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don’t.”
Klaasen’s approach clicked. By staying at the crease and playing improvised strokes, he left Chahal and Kuldeep shocked. To the extremely wide delivery by Chahal, which has got Glenn Maxwell many times, Klaasen shuffled way outside off and pulled it to square leg.
“On that wide line, he got a lot of turn and bounce, so to run down the wicket was quite a highrisk shot. I do like over extracover, but my option was from the back foot over extra cover, or the one over square-leg. Those were my options for the boundary.” MUMBAI: Virat Kohli has made it a habit of breaking batting records. The India captain, who has been in the form of his life in recent times, reached another milestone during his knock of 75 against South Africa in the fourth ODI at Johannesburg on Saturday.
The 29-year-old went past former captain Mohammad Azharuddin’s tally of 9,378 runs to become the fifth highest rungetter for the country in ODIS.
Kohli also surpassed West Indian Chris Gayle’s tally of 9,420 runs to take 16th place on the list of highest run-getters in the 50-over format. He now has 9,423 runs from 206 matches.
Among Indians, Sachin Tendulkar is the highest run-getter in ODIS with 18,426 runs from 463 matches with the help of 49 hundreds. Sourav Ganguly (11,363), Rahul Dravid (10,889) and MS Dhoni (9,954) follow on the list.
at the moment, Kohli seems the only player capable of toppling Tendulkar’s batting records in ODIS.
In the four ODIS so far against South Africa, Kohli has amassed 393 runs at an average of 196.50 with the help of two match-winning tons and one half-century. Saturday’s innings also made him the second batsman after AB de Villiers to accumulate 350-plus runs in an ODI bilateral series in the Rainbow Nation. De Villiers had aggregated 367 runs against Pakistan in 2013.
Kohli’s half-century went in vain as South Africa beat India by five wickets in a rain-curtailed game.