ICC T20 World Cup 2016: Shahid Afridi likens Virat Kohli to Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar
It seems that Indian batting maestro Virat Kohli is garnering praises from his opponents too. Recently, Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi praised Kohli by comparing him with the Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar.
“Virat Kohli is becoming like a wall in the Indian team. Earlier, it used to be Sachin Tendulkar who won matches for India and now it is Kohli who is playing that role,” Afridi said after Pakistan lost to Australia by 21 runs to crash out of the ICC T20 World Cup 2016.
Virat Kohli has been in sublime form with the bat and it was largely due to his efforts that India managed to outclass their arch-rivals Pakistan in a high-voltage encounter at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Virat scored a classy 55 not out on a challenging track to guide India to a famous win over their traditional rivals.
Pakistan out of the tournament
Pakistan, however, had a tournament to forget as they crashed out of the event after suffering a defeat against Australia in their last Super 10 game. Pakistan only managed to win a single game in the tournament and they lost 3 games on the trot to see themselves out of the tournament.
Shahid Afridi conceded that Pakistan were simply not good enough against the Australians and he admitted that they had problems in their batting and it was the death over bowling too that let them down in the all-important game.
Pakistan, courtesy of a very good net run rate before the Australia game had every chance to stay afloat in the tournament. But they squandered their opportunity as they couldn’t take advantage of the important moments in the game.
They had Australia reeling at 57 for 3 but couldn’t capitalise on this as Australia went on to put up a huge total on the board. It was their opener Sharjeel Khan once again who provided them with a solid start but they failed to consolidate on a good start as they lost the game by 21 runs.
However, Afridi was all praise for the Indian batsman Kohli whom he likened to the great Sachin Tendulkar. One cannot argue with him as Kohli has been winning matches for India in a consistent manner over the past few years and he has emerged to become one of the backbones of the Indian batting. In all the formats, Kohli has stamped his class and authority with brilliant performances with the bat.
The dejected Pakistan skipper would have loved to have someone like Kohli in his team which looked abysmal in their approach in the ongoing mega-event.