Asia Cup 2023: Centuries from Kohli and Rahul power India to 356-2 against Pakistan in Super 4 Game
The 24-hour wait of the fans for the resumption of the greatest rivalry paid off as the India- Pakistan match started after almost two-hour delay on the reserve day but with no overs lost.
KL and Kohli started cautiously playing out the first few overs on the second day of the match without taking any risks. Kohli especially was the more watchful of the two with KL batting a bit aggressively. The plan of the two Indian batters was quite clear Rahul would play attackingly while Kohli would rotate the strike.
The Sixth Bowler
One thing that went in India’s favor was the absence of Haris Rauf. The fast bowler did not take the field as he was nursing an injury which he suffered yesterday.
The absence of Rauf meant that Pakistan was forced to bowl their sixth bowling option in Iftikhar Ahmed which visibly backfired as KL Rahul took the spinner to the cleaner.
Faheem Ashraf who was playing as a fast bowling all-rounder tried to pull things back by bowling some economical overs but the duo of Rahul and Virat made full use of some loose bowling from the other end and added 233 runs for the third wicket
The Acceleration
The duo got to their respective fifties on either side of a drinks break at the 38-over mark and then proceeded to push harder on the accelerator.
It began with a 16-run Iftikhar over in the 43rd, that took India to 280 for 2. Rahul punished width from Faheem in the 44th over before reaching his century in the 47th.
Kohli completed his hundred in the 48th over a ball after becoming the fastest batter to reach 13000 ODI runs. He ended with a score of 122 not out which included 18 runs in the last over of the innings bowled by Faheem Ashraf. This is India’s joint-highest score against Pakistan in ODI cricket
Brief Scores: India 147/2 in 50 overs (Virat Kohli 122*, KL Rahul 111*, Shubman Gill 58, Rohit Sharma 56; Shaheen Afridi 1-79, Shadab Khan 1-71) vs Pakistan
