Adelaide: Virat Kohli’s eternal love affair with the Adelaide Oval continued as he powered India to an imposing 184 for 6 against Bangladesh with a beautifully crafted 64 not out in the T20 World Cup here on Wednesday.
There were eight fours and a six in his 44-ball innings as none of the Bangladesh bowlers had any answer for his exquisite stroke-play.
The pitch was way slower compared to Perth and the Bangladesh bowling attack fizzled out under extreme pressure in the post-Powerplay overs as KL Rahul (50 off 31 ball) also returned to form with his first fifty of the tournament.
Kohli, en route to his third half-century of the competition, had couple of useful stands 67 for second wicket with Rahul and 38 for the third wicket with Suryakumar Yadav (30 off 15 balls).
India skipper Rohit Sharma (2 off 7 balls) couldn’t capitalize on the dropped chance in the first over off Taskin Ahmed’s (0/15 in 4 overs).
Shakib Al Hasan (2/33 in 4 overs) picked wickets of Rahul and Surya but Taskin undoubtedly was the best bowler on view.
If Bangladesh lose the game, it will be because of the cumulative 104 runs in eight overs conceded by left-arm pacer Shoriful Islam (0/57) and Hasan Mahmud (3/47).
Having copped a lot of criticism over the past three games, Rahul got into his element. He played his customary pick-up pull-shot’, which is a whip off the wrists behind square for a six.
With skipper Rohit dismissed cheaply, Kohli eased the initial pressure put by Taskin with some fleet-footed running between the wickets.
Rahul took 20 balls to score his first 21 runs but once the Powerplay was done away with, he suddenly upped the ante as in one over from Shoriful, he hit a short-arm pull over deep mid-wicket and a slash over backward point for two maximums.
That ninth over from Shoriful yielded 24 runs and the pressure was completely released on the Indian batters.
Rahul’s next 29 runs came off 10 balls before his 31-ball-50 ended when an attempted lap-shot found the top-edge and Mustafizur took a well-judged catch off skipper Shakib’s bowling. The second wicket stand yielded 67 in just 5.5 overs.
Kohli at the other end hit a flurry of boundaries couple off Taskin, one from Mustafizur and the best of the lot a copybook off-drive that one can watch on the loop as many times one wishes to.
The stage was set for Suryakumar and he responded in style with a quickfire cameo before Shakib’s arm-ball breached his defense.
However, Kohli continued to attack from one end to take India to an above-par score even as Hardik Pandya (5), Dinesh Karthik (7) and Axar Patel (7) couldn’t provide much support towards the back-end.
Ravichandran Ashwin (13 not out off 6 balls) did hit some lusty blows which could prove to be very useful in final context of the match.
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