Kohli finds form to help India win third ODI
Virat Kohli announced his return to form with an unbeaten 77, which helped his side beat England, by seven wickets, in Ranchi.
20-Jan-2013
Virat Kohli has become the second-fastest cricketer to 4000 ODI runs, in terms of innings batted. He reached the milestone in 93 matches. • BCCI
Virat Kohli's scores of 0, 6, 7, 15, 37, in his last five ODIs didn't paint a pretty picture for a player touted as the mainstay of India's batting in the future. But, on Saturday, Kohli announced his return to form with an unbeaten 77, which helped his side beat England by seven wickets in Ranchi.
MS Dhoni won the toss and chose to field and his bowlers, aided by a touch of early movement and a middle-order collapse against spin, helped skittle England out for 155 in 42.2 overs, which was their third-lowest score to be bowled out in an ODI against India.
Each of the six bowlers, used by Dhoni, claimed wickets, with Ravindra Jadeja being the pick, with figures of three for 19 in 6.2 overs.
With the bat, India lost opener Ajinkya Rahane without scoring. After the initial stutter, Gautam Gambhir and Kohli kept the momentum from swinging in England's favour with a 67-run stand for the third wicket.
Kohli, who struck eleven boundaries in his 77, became the second-fastest cricketer to 4000 ODI runs, in terms of innings batted. Viv Richards achieved the landmark in 88 innings, while Kohli reached there in his 93rd.
After the match, Kohli said that he concentrated on playing the ball on merit "I was batting well for a while, getting out in different ways, got a few good balls, made a few mistakes."
"Today I just reacted to the way the ball was thrown at me. I did not have to pre-plan which I was doing in the previous games. I was relying on my reflexes. It was a difficult wicket, Finn gets the ball to seam on any wicket. Crowd support was brilliant."
Dhoni said that Kohli's innings was important as the ball was swinging. "Gautam batted well with Virat, that was important as the ball was doing something.
"Bowlers did the job for us. It was important to take wickets with the new ball. 150-odd was not enough to defend for the English side. Execution is very important. Response from the people has been amazing. Everything went off well, we won the game, it was a perfect script."