Don’t know how he manages that consistency, says Chahar post Kohli’s innings

Virat Kohli, who rode the Men in Blue to a commanding win over South Africa in the second T20I, has won high praise from his team-mate Deepak Chahar, who believes India skipper is a “next-level player” altogether.

On Wednesday evening, Kohli scored an unbeaten half-century to help India beat the Proteas in the second T20I at the IS Bindra PCA Stadium and take an unassailable 1-0 lead in the three-match series. With this innings, Kohli also surpassed Rohit Sharma to become the highest scorer in T20Is.

He now has 2,441 runs in the format while Sharma has 2,434. Kohli has also become the only batsman to have his batting average above 50 in all three formats of the game.

Kohli’s innings was studded with four fours and three sixes and he took 52 balls to remain unbeaten at 72.

“I don’t know how Virat bhaiya (brother) manages to score these many runs and that too with such consistency. He is a next-level player,” said Chahar at the post-match presser.

Speaking about his own performance in the match, Chahar, who picked two wickets while conceding 22 runs from his stipulated 4-over spell, said he finds it easy to bowl in the death overs due to the presence of extra fielders outside the 30-yard circle.

“I find it easy to bowl death overs because, in the powerplay, you only get two fielders outside the circle. However, after the powerplay, you get five fielders outside. Therefore, I find it easy to bowl death overs,”

On being asked about next year’s World T20 to be held in Australia, the right-arm pacer said that he is not thinking too far ahead and is taking one match at a time.

“It is still one year for the World Cup and I do not think far too ahead. I take every match as my last match,” he said.

“At this time, Indian cricket is at the top and if you want to find a spot, you will have to do very good and that too, in every match because there is a lot of competition.”

The two teams will now lock horns with each other in the final T20I to be played on Sunday at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

At the same time, South Africa skipper Quinton de Kock heaped praise on his youngsters and backed them to do well in the third match as they lost to India by seven wickets.

South Africa played three debutants in Anrich Nortje and Bjorn Fortuin besides Bavuma as they looked to rebuild a team which suffered a disastrous World Cup where they crashed out in the league stage.

“We got off to a good start and towards the end they bowled pretty well and they assessed the conditions better than we did,” de Kock said after the match.

“There was a lot of pressure on some of the new guys and I think they did pretty well against this world-class opposition. South Africa depended a lot on star pacer Kagiso Rabada to get the wickets but he went wicketless and leaked 24 runs in three overs.”

Kagiso Rabada upfront tried to pick up wickets and unfortunately, with pace on the ball it looked easier to bat on and pace off the ball seemed to be the better option on this wicket.

“I was quite hungry to get out there and hopefully next time we do better than what we did today with the bat,” added the visiting captain. The two sides next meet in the final T20 encounter at Bengaluru on Sunday. The first match was washed out in Dharamsala.

Agencies