Former Indian skipper and senior batter Virat Kohli made his comeback after a long time in international cricket. He played for India in the first match of their campaign in the Asia Cup against Pakistan. Notably, Kohli was not a part of the team for the last month. He missed the previous two bilateral clashes against West Indies and then Zimbabwe.
He played a knock of 35 runs off 34 balls with three boundaries and a six to his name. The 33-year-old also achieved a new milestone just with an appearance in this match against Pakistan. The veteran right-hander has now become the only Indian cricketer in history to play 100 matches in all formats of the game.
Kohli stitched a partnership of 49 runs with skipper Rohit Sharma for the second wicket. But Just after the wicket of Rohit, Kohli also happened to throw his wicket and India lost their third wicket just after the addition of three runs since Rohit’s wicket.
Amidst all the opinions on Kohli, former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir has something else to say about the veteran. He lashed out at the Delhi batter. Gambhir said if there would have been any youngster instead of him, then he could have faced a lot of criticism but nobody will say anything because he is Kohli.
There would have been a lot of criticism if a youngster had played that kind of shot - Gautam Gambhir on Virat Kohli
"He will be extremely disappointed because Rohit Sharma's wicket had just fallen and after that, if you play a shot like that, it is good a youngster did not play that shot. There would have been a lot of criticism if a youngster had played that kind of shot," said Gambhir during a discussion in a post-match show at Star Sports.
Speaking of the match, then Pakistan posted a total of 147 runs for the loss of all the wickets in 19.5 overs. Mohammad Rizwan scored 43 runs off 42 balls with four boundaries and a six. Bhuvneshwar scalped four wickets by conceding just 26 runs in his quota of four overs.
While chasing down, Indians crossed the line in the 19.4 overs on the backs of batting heroics from Ravindra Jadeja and Hardik Pandya. Pandya won the award of player of the match for his match-defining all-round performance.