The 20/20 World cup is coming to its final rounds and the cricket world is buzzing! This was expected as some teams have shown amazing skills and have surprised and more than needed.
But to we talk about the Indian cricket royalty which is Virat Kohli. Virat Kohli’s reign as India’s T20I captain culminated in a nine-wicket thumping of Namibia as both teams’ 2021 T20 World Cup campaigns came to an end. Leading India for the 50th and final time in the format, Kohli registered his 30th win, which gave him an impressive win percentage of 60. He lost 16 matches as India’s T20I captain.
It was also the end of the road for India’s coaching staff, with head coach Ravi Shastri, bowling coach Bharat Arun, batting coach Vikram Rathour, and fielding coach R Sridhar vacating their roles after an impressive collective tenure in making India a winning machine (at home and away) across formats.
Kohli won his second consecutive toss and chose to field first. Namibia, after an impressive start by their openers Stephan Baard and Michael van Lingen, stumbled their way to 132 for eight. David Wiese top-scored with 26 and finished the tournament as Namibia’s leading run-scorer with 227 runs in eight innings.
For India, Ravindra Jadeja (3 for 16) and Ravichandran Ashwin (3/20) provided the key breakthroughs through the middle phase to give India the upper hand. Chasing 133, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul put together their second fifty-plus stand in last three innings to set India up for a comfortable win. Rohit went on to make his 24th T20I half-century, a 37-ball 56 (7 fours and 2 sixes), while Rahul scored his 15th T20I fifty, a 36-ball 54 (4 fours and 2 sixes), and remained unbeaten. Suryakumar Yadav, who walked in at No. 3 ahead of captain Kohli much to everyone’s surprise, sparkled again to also remain unbeaten on 25 off 19 balls.
India finished third in Group 2 with three wins from five fixtures as they, for the first time since 2012, failed to reach the semi-finals of an ICC tournament. It was, however, India’s 150th T20I match and their 95th victory.
