Tamil Diplomat

Virat Kohli, in short, is Don Bradman

Samakalam
May 19

It started to pour since 6 o’clock in the evening. About three hours later, when rain stopped, a portion of the Chinnaswamy outfield was under ankle-deep water. At 9.30pm, Virat Kohli and Murali Vijay walked out for the toss. Fifteen minutes hence, they were up and running; for a 15-overs-a-side contest. “Let the rain stop, give me 45 minutes and we will have at least 15 overs (per side),” Karnataka State Cricket Association chief curator Sriram Rangan had said. He walked the talk.

The hard-working ground staff were owed a debt of gratitude from the fans for ensuring another Kohli batting show; the most beautiful sight cricket can offer at the moment. On Wednesday, the Royal Challengers Bangalore captain scored his fourth century of the season and got past 4,000 IPL career runs, playing with seven stitches on the left-hand webbing. And when he eventually perished for 113 (50 balls, 12 fours and eight sixes) in the penultimate over, almost every Kings XI Punjab player ran up to him to congratulate.

Kohli has now taken his IPL 9 tally to 865 runs in 13 matches. His average is a staggering 86.50 and strike-rate 155.01. He has four hundreds and five half-centuries to his credit. Adjectives are falling short in describing Kohli in this form. ‘Bradman’ of limited-overs cricket might not be an exaggeration.