BIRMINGHAM: Another crunch game, another opportunity for
Virat Kohli to craft a special innings. India's captain has over the past few years exhibited a rare ability to raise his game, and India will be hoping he fires in against Bangladesh.
Among batsmen who have scored a minimum of 400 runs in the
Champions Trophy,
Kohli has the highest average in winning causes: an unbelievable 137.33 from 8 games! He doesn't have a century in this tournament yet, but four fifties and a strike rate of 90.15 shows he has executed his primary task that of anchoring the innings to perfection whenever India have won.
"I love to play in these crunch games, that's what you live for as a player," said Kohli."But there is no special preparation. I just go into it like I go into any other game. We want to win as many games as we can, and we always play to win. You don't think about whether it's this game, or that game." Kohli, in fact, also leads this particular chart in ODIs in general. Among batsmen with a minimum of 4,000 ODI runs, he has the highest average in winning causes -72.54 - in the 106 ODIs India have won with Kohli in the XI. He also has 23 tons and 23 fifties in these games, making India's most valuable ODI player on current form.
MS Dhoni, incidentally, is a close second the list, averaging 72.02 from the 160 ODIs wins in which he has featured. The top five also includes AB de Villiers,
Michael Bevan and
Hashim Amla. "Obviously as a batsman you want to finish off games," said Kohli. "We're not taking anything for granted. We will use whatever momentum we have gained."
'Ashwin was brilliant'Kohli hinted that Umesh Yadav might continue to sit out in spite of doing well in the warm-up game against Bangladesh, saying, "I think Ashwin was brilliant in the last game, and I see no reason to change that. It was a complete performance (against South Africa)."