Indian batting maestro Virat Kohli showed glimpses of his quality as he welcomed Aussie pacer Mitchell Starc with a hat-trick of fours in the final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023.
Indian batting star Virat Kohli is on a roll in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 with his quality batting. Throughout the tournament, Kohli has played some exceptional knocks right up until the final. And on 'D day', Kohli seemed to carry where he left off as he punished Australian pacer Mitchell Starc with three consecutive fours. (Match Blog | Scorecard | Streaming | Key Battles)
In the seventh over, Kohli greeted Starc with a boundary despite the star batter not timing it properly from his bat. A fullish delivery but Kohli played it in an aggressive manner for a lofted drive.
The second delivery, Starc angled his delivery short and wide of off stump but Kohli stood tall and just punched it with an angled bat. And the third was the vintage, Virat Kohli cover drive. The Indian batter just leaned into the shot and hit the delivery towards mid-off region for a third four.
Earlier, Australia captain Pat Cummins had won the toss and elected to bowl against India in the World Cup final on Sunday at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad.
Both India and Australia fielded unchanged sides.
Speaking at the toss, Cummins said, "We are gonna have a bowl first. Looks like a dry wicket. Dew is a factor. It gets better to bat on. Tough start to the tournament, haven't really put a foot wrong ever since. It's all set up perfectly. We've played these guys a lot. Same team as the semi-final."
Rohit too said he would have batted first if they had won the toss. "I would have batted first. Looks a good pitch, big game, put runs on the board. It's going to be amazing, everytime we play here,the crowd come out in large numbers. The biggest occasion in the cricketing event. We have to stay nice and calm. It's a dream come true to be captaining the team in the final. I know what lies in front of us. We need to play well and get the result."
The Teams:
India: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj.
Australia: Pat Cummins (c), Travis Head, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, Glenn Maxwell, Josh Inglis (wk), Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood.