"His next 10 innings, you might see another 5 hundreds" - Ravi Shastri expects more yield from Virat Kohli's purple patch
Former India player and head coach Ravi Shastri praised Virat Kohli's scintillating show in the 2023 ODI World Cup semi-final against New Zealand at the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday. The ace batter scored his record 50th ODI hundred to help India seal a 70-run win and cement a place in the final.
In the process of scoring the record hundred, Kohli also breached the record for the most number of runs scored in a single World Cup edition. He breezed past Sachin Tendulkar's two-decade-long 673-run record to become the first player to score over 700 runs in a single edition.
Expecting Kohli to keep piling on hundreds on the back of his current near-invincible form, Shastri said in the latest edition of the ICC Review:
"Nothing's impossible because such players, when they start reeling off hundreds, then they score them pretty quickly. His next 10 innings, you might see another five hundreds.You have three formats of the game and he's part of all those formats.To think that he still has three or four years of cricket ahead of him is simply mind-boggling.”
Shastri also commended Kohli's ability to make his innings count with his supreme ability to run between the wickets and not entirely rely on boundaries to shape his knocks.
"One of the features of his batting has been his running between the wickets. The fact that he doesn't have to hit boundaries and sixes, he can run hard between the wickets because of his physical fitness," he stated.
“That takes the pressure off him. Even when he's not getting the boundaries, he's still rotating the strike. And he always has that uncanny ability of making it up towards the back end of the innings,” Shastri added.
Kohli hit nine fours and two sixes, accumulating a total of 48 runs through boundaries in his 117-run knock against the Kiwis. He did not let the infamous Mumbai heat and humidity get to him and was proactive right from his first ball to his last.
"I have seen him come out in previous World Cups where he's like a cat on a hot tin roof" - Ravi Shastri
When it comes to ODI World Cups before the 2023 edition, one could arguably say that Kohli had underachieved, considering his sky-high standards.
A century in his ODI World Cup debut against Bangladesh in 2011, and another one against Pakistan coupled with a set of fifties in the 2019 edition was all he had to show for across three World Cups. His misfortune in the knockout clashes also hampered his numbers.
However, Kohli has more than made up for it with a historic campaign in 2023, which may well end in silverware, ending Team India's decade-long ICC silverware drought.
Opining that Kohli is a much calmer figure, leading to his run-scoring spree in the competition, Shastri said:
"I think his composure, just his body language, his composure, his calmness of the crease (was telling). I have seen him come out in previous World Cups where he's like a cat on a hot tin roof. He wants to get on with it straight away. None of that sort here.He's taken his time, marked his guard, soaked the pressure, given himself time, and understood his role of batting deep in the innings. And he's just been wonderful.”
Team India will face the winner of the second semi-final between Australia and South Africa in the 2023 World Cup final at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday.