“First time in fifteen years” Virat Kohli on playing ODIs on consecutive days

India thrashed Pakistan by 228 runs in the Super Four clash of the Asia Cup. It was a complete team performance where the Men In Blue ticked a few boxes on their way to an emphatic way as we saw KL Rahul keep wickets in the second innings after scoring a century and batting for half of the Indian innings on the second day of the match.

The right-hander was tested fully as he ran a lot of twos and threes while batting with Virat Kohli which was a good fitness test for him. In the bowling department, he was tested by Hardik Pandya who bowled a few bouncers to the Pakistani batters which went over Rahul’s head as he tried to collect the rising balls.

Although India wrapped up the Pakistani innings quite quickly it would be interesting to see how will the team perform in the next match against Sri Lanka which happens to be a few hours after the match against Pakistan. 

Virat Speaks about playing against Sri Lanka

Virat Kohli who was the man of the match in the game against Pakistan on being asked the same thing said “It’s the first time I have done anything like this in 15 years of cricket. Luckily, we are Test players, so we know how to come back the next day and play. Recovery is crucial. It was humid out there today. I am 35 in November, so I need to take care of my recovery. A big shoutout to the ground staff from my side,” the former Indian captain said in the post-match presentation.

Been There Done That

It might be Virat’s first experience of playing two ODI games on consecutive days but it is not the first time that India will be playing two ODI matches on back-to-back days as the Rohit Sharma-led did so in the 2018 Asia Cup in UAE when almost every team in the tournament played matches on consecutive days which was criticized by many experts given the weather was quite hot at that time of the year for the teams to play back to back matches