Virat Kohli scored 139 not out off 88 balls against the West Indies to guide India to an easy 8-wicket victory in Kerala on Sunday, and he is back receiving extraordinary praises.
India captain Shubman Gill, who also scored a century in the match as the hosts chased down 296 with 50 balls to spare, was happy with the way Kohli batted against the Caribbean team.
In the last couple of years, Kohli, along with Rohit Sharma, has always been under scrutiny. Last year, when he scored back-to-back ducks in Australia, the clamour for his head reached an unprecedented level. But then he scored 70-odd in the final game to calm his critics down a bit. Then India played South Africa and New Zealand at home, and he piled on the runs in those series.
Kohli is always a contributor but his innings in India are bigger and much more impactful. The same can’t be said when he plays overseas, though he keeps getting runs. In three ODIs against England, he got scores of 65 and 74 in the second and third ODIs – having failed in the first with 5 – but the team lost both the games and the series. But now he is back in India, and he is back among big runs and back among big praise.
‘He is enjoying his game a lot more’
Gill and Kohli added 151 runs for the second wicket to push the West Indies totally out of the contest. The Indian captain, of course, saw Kohli’s exploits from the best seat in the house – from the non-striker’s end – and he was quite pleased with what he saw. “He is enjoying the game a lot more, playing with freedom and enjoying the game and those are the effects of his batting. He always had the game, he always had the ability to clear the boundary at will, and I think he’s doing that right now,” Gill said.
Gill, although he didn’t say in as many words, backed Kohli and didn’t want his seasoned batter to be under continual scrutiny. Kohli, who on Sunday became the second batter to score 15,000 in ODIs after Sachin Tendulkar (18,426), wants to go on till the 2027 World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, and he should feel good that he has his captain’s support.
“Someone like him who’s won so many matches for the country, who’s done it over and over again, you just let him be, and you just want him to play however he feels like on the day, because when he plays well, he can win matches for you,” Gill added.