T20 World Cup: Pakistan legends praise Virat Kohli, explain what separates India batter from the rest

Virat Kohli, who will turn 34 on Saturday, is back in his element and has again become the tormentor of the bowlers that he used to be three summers ago. The India batter looks unstoppable in the ongoing T20 World Cup and he has been in fantastic form since the Asia Cup. During that tournament, he made his return to international cricket after a month, a break he took after months of battling inconsistent form.

Since then, Virat has scored 624 runs in 14 innings at an average of 78.00. One century and six fifties have come out of his bat, with a best of 122*.

Meanwhile, former Pakistan captains Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, and Shoaib Malik praised Kohli for his intensity and never-say-die attitude.

Akram highlighted how Kohli refused to let the ‘captaincy sacking’ incident affect his game and kept his intensity intact.

“Instead of making a face, I got dropped as a captain and blah blah blah. I will just stand quietly at short fine-leg but he said no I got dropped as a captain, fine! I will play as a batter and also be the best fielder in the Indian side,” Akram said on A Sports.

In the same panel, Waqar Younis mentioned that, usually in Pakistan, the captain will lose his place in the playing XI when the leadership duties are removed.

“In Pakistan, you go home after you are dropped from captaincy. I don’t remember any player (from Pakistan) who has got dropped from captaincy and is making heads turn as a player,” he added.

Also, Pakistan all-rounder Shoaib Malik laud Kohli for being a team man and treating a T20 as a 40-over game rather than only concentrating on his batting.

“This is something we’ve got to learn from Virat Kohli. Here in Pakistan, if you’ve scored runs, then people roam around with their collars up. There’s no harm in doing that but always be a team man whether you have scored runs or not. His quality is that he plays the entire 40 overs with the same intensity. You will always see Kohli trying to help out the team in the field. It doesn’t matter whether he has scored a hundred or has been dismissed for a zero,” Malik said.

Interestingly, Kohli on Wednesday became the highest run-scorer in the history of the ICC T20 World Cup during his unbeaten 64 of 44 balls against Bangladesh. The former India captain’s record in T20 WC is – 1,065 runs in 23 innings across 25 matches at an average of 88.75. 13 half-centuries have come off his bat, with the best score of 89*. His strike rate in the tournament is 132.46.