Former India opener Gautam Gambhir feels Virat Kohli ‘slowed down’ a bit towards the end of his inning to complete his 49th ODI century against South Africa. Gambhir said that the move ‘could have hurt India’ however he also insisted that it was important for Virat to bat deep in the game.
Former Pakistan captain Mohammad Hafeez was one of the first former cricketers to publicly come out and call Virat Kohli ‘selfish’ saying that Rohit Sharma played ‘selfless’ cricket.
That’s not all, the word ‘selfish’ started to trend on social media shortly after Virat Kohli completed his milestone 49th ODI century to equal Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most hundreds in the format.
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The likes of Michael Vaughan and Venkatesh Prasad hit back at Hafeez, saying that Virat wasn’t wrong in his approach as India won by over 200 runs, Gautam Gambhir admitted that the 35-year-old did slow down and that could have hurt India.
After Kohli scored 101 in 121 balls, he helped India reach a total of 326/5, after which Ravindra Jadeja’s fiery five-wicket haul helped restrict South Africa to a total of 83 runs, thus giving the Men in Blue a massive 243-run victory.
“It was important for Kohli to bat deep and I feel it was at the end, just the last 5-6 overs where he slowed down a bit, maybe because he was nearing a century. But I believe there were already enough runs on the board. It could have hurt India if they were batting on a good pitch,” Gambhir told Sportskeeda.
“You got to give credit to Shreyas Iyer for the way he kept taking chances and took the pressure off Virat Kohli. Both batted really well in the middle as the best time to bat was with the new ball. They expertly negotiated Keshav Maharaj and giving him just one wicket when Jadeja picked five was brilliant,” he added further.
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Meanwhile, Kohli also helped India record a memorable 234-run victory over South Africa as Ravindra Jadeja’s fifer restricted the Proteas to a mere 83-run total.
India, South Africa and Australia are through the semifinals, the Aussies will face off against the Proteas while India are waiting for the last semifinalist to be confirmed to know their opponents, with New Zealand, Pakistan and Afghanistan all in contention.
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