There is an English commentary called ‘Man of all occasions’. It can be interpreted as those who can achieve at all times and at all times.
This phrase can be applied to the Indian team in the current World Cup. Indian team has won against 8 different teams in 8 different stadiums showing great dominance.
Moreover, winning today’s match against South Africa has revealed how much the Indian team is at its peak.
They said that this match between South Africa and India at the Eden Gardens will be a ‘Pre Finals’ which means a rehearsal for the finals. With such a big build-up, the Indian team has easily won the match by 243 runs without any difficulty.
Indian captain Rohit Sharma won the toss. He announced that he was going to chase South Africa. There the Indian team has secured half the victory. Because the South African team was chasing in the match against the Netherlands which they lost earlier. South Africa was also chasing in the match which they won by 1 wicket against Pakistan. South Africa have been floundering in both the matches they have chased. Chasing is their weakness. Rohit hits it perfectly.
In the first 10 overs, the captain of the Indian team, Rohit Sharma, was active and kept the run rate high. He was dismissed for 40 off 24 balls. It was in this situation that Virat Kohli entered the field at number 3. Gill, another opener, did not stand and play much. He too was dismissed for 23 runs by Keshav Maharaj. Shreyas Iyer came in at number 4. As both the openers got out quickly, Virat Kohli had the responsibility to stay calm and raise the team’s score. Shreyas was dancing on the other side. Shreyas Iyer took a lot of time to settle down. Played a lot of darts. This time too the onus was on Kohli to raise the score. Kohli also kept rotating the strike well. Keshav Maharaja’s ball also tripped at some places. Keeper De Kock also missed some catch opportunities given by Kohli. Kohli also escaped the edge on the review of a ball. Kohli reached his fifty off 67 balls. At this time Shreyas Iyer also started hitting well in the set.
It was more helpful to Kohli. Shreyas stepped in to play second fiddle to Kohli and shuffled. He also bowled some short balls well. The run rate also started to rise. But Shreyazoom did not last. On 77 runs, Lungi was dismissed by Ingidi. KL Rahul also got out at the speed of 8 runs.
This has increased the responsibility on Kohli. Medu slowly approached the goalie’s century by facing the dangerous South African bowlers like Tabrez Shamsi, Ingiti and Rabada with maturity.
The 70,000-plus fans gathered at Eden Gardens waved their mobile phones in the air and cheered as a king strolled among the twinkling stars. Kohli hit the 119th ball that Rabada bowled him at extra cover to reach his century.
This is the 49th century scored in ODI matches by the goalkeeper who celebrates his 35th birthday today. Sachin Tendulkar previously held the record of scoring the most centuries in ODIs. Sachin had scored 49 hundreds. Virat Kohli has now equaled Sachin’s feat. Sachin scored 49 centuries in 452 innings, Kohli took just 277 innings. With Kohli’s excellent innings, the Indian team scored 326 runs in 50 overs.
327 runs target for the South African team. Having strong hitters, it was expected that they would forget all the past bitter memories and challenge in the chase this time. But the South African team played as if there was no chance for all that. They batted very badly and were all out for 83 runs.
Within an hour of South Africa opening the batting, the Indian team ended their story. India’s bowling unit like Siraj, Bumrah, Shami, Jadeja, Kuldeep showed their dominance in full. Siraj gives space outside off-stump and bowls it to an inside edge, forcing de Kock to steal the stumps. Captain Bauma was out after mistaking the stumps for Jadeja’s return ball.
Shami was amazing by taking Markram’s wicket in the first over. Also made Vander Dussen lbw. He made Rohit take a review with full confidence for that wicket. Clausen, Miller and Jadeja’s hit list went on and on. The Indian bowlers have taken all the important wickets of the South African team within 17 overs. All the overs after that were the overs for the Indian team to prepare for the victory celebration. South Africa were all out for 83 runs in 27.1 overs. Jadeja gave only 33 runs in 9 overs and took 5 wickets. But it was Kohli who equaled Sachin’s record by scoring a hundred on his birthday and made the day his own and was awarded the man of the match award.
The Indian team has played 8 matches without losing any match. The fans want to see the knockouts roll by storm at the same pace.
