India are playing their fourth consecutive ODI World Cup semifinal in a row. Virat Kohli has scored his first 50-plus score in an ICC World Cup semifinal, having missed out on three occasions previously.
ndia’s modern-day batting virtuoso Virat Kohli has done what most cricketers can only dream of accomplishing as he has surpassed the ‘Master Blaster’ Sachin Tendulkar to score his 50th ODI century in the ongoing World Cup semifinal while playing against New Zealand.
Having missed out on the opportunity in the game against the Netherlands in India’s last game of the round-robin stage at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, Virat was smelling blood from the time he arrived in the middle at Wankhede. Renowned as “King Kohli”, the right-handed batter took centre stage in the ninth over of India’s innings in the semis after Tim Southee deceived skipper Rohit Sharma off a slower delivery.
The 35-year-old blocked his first delivery but inside-edged the next one towards fine leg to get off the mark and fetch his first boundary of the game. In the 14th over, Virat nailed a cover drive for a boundary off Rachin Ravindra as the latter erred in his line and length and bowled a delivery right in Virat’s driving arc.
From then on, Kohli never looked back and built his entire innings as an adept architect focused on the task at hand. The Delhi-born built his innings brick by brick, running hard between the wickets in Mumbai’s severe humidity and pouncing onto anything loose that came his way.
He reached his fifty on the final delivery of the 27th over as he took a single down to long-on and acknowledged a rousing reception from the Wankhede crowd. Cognizant that he needed to switch gears keeping the nature of the surface and the magnitude of the occasion in mind, Virat accelerated and reached his 50th ODI hundred off 106 deliveries in the 42nd over.
The former India skipper placed the fourth delivery of Lockie Ferguson’s over between long-leg and deep midwicket and ran hard to scale the illustrious milestone.
With inputs from agencies
