“Kohli, Kohli” was the chant just before 41.4 when Virat Kohli flicked a Lockie Ferguson delivery to deep square-leg and raced back for two. When he completed the second, the modern-day great jumped and punched the air in delight before sinking down on his knees. He rose and bowed down to his idol, Sachin Tendulkar who was present in the stands. He waved and sent a flying kiss to his wife Anushka Sharma.
Those images, pictures and frames will be etched in memory of the cricketing fraternity all around the world. Virat Kohli was at the center of it all. He rose above every obstacle, crossed every single hurdle and produced a special.
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Let’s rewind a bit before we dig deep into 15th November 2023.
9, 1, 1! It’s not an emergency number, neither are those total number of runs but these are Virat Kohli’s scores in three semi-finals of the previous three 50-over World Cups. Perhaps, this was the only blip in the Indian batting great’s ODI career.
His World Cup knockout numbers and more specifically, his failures in World Cup semi-finals were eye-raising. He had performed excellently in the knockouts of the ICC T20 World Cups and even, the Champions Trophy.
Kohli’s ODI record has always been astounding. You name the record in ODI cricket and Kohli owns it. Hence, the low scores in World Cup knockouts were a massive blemish. He averaged a mere 12.16 in World Cup quarters, semis and finals before 2023. His highest of 35 came in the 2011 World Cup final.
However, 15th November is a day that he and the Indian cricketing fraternity will remember forever. It was a mere 10 days back that Kohli equaled the great Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 49 ODI hundreds. That day, his 35th birthday, there was a sense of inevitably to that knock. Quite a few of them even predicted it and sort of manifested it.
10 days later, there was once again hope! But there were things stacked up against India and Kohli. The Rohit Sharma-led side were up against their ICC nemesis of the recent past, New Zealand (against whom they lost the semi-final in 2019). Kohli was up against his own record in the knockouts. But cometh the man, cometh the hour! King Kohli stepped up and how!
The former India skipper was batting like a dream in that World Cup. In the league phase, he had only two failures – one against Pakistan (16) and one against England (0). He had already racked up 594 runs in nine outings with two hundreds and five fifties. He averaged 99 till that point while his strike-rate was 88.52.
Kohli was central to India’s batting plans throughout the tournament. While the others around him attacked, he was the anchor who held his end up and allowed the others to play freely. He was assigned the role of batting deep and he was playing it to the ‘T’.
On the big day, there were nerves and he survived an LBW shout early. He just about managed to get an inside-edge onto his pad off the second delivery he faced. That was given not out on the field and it was reviewed which went in Kohli’s favour. It was that moment that eased and freed Kohli up a bit.
India had already gotten a superb start, courtesy of Rohit Sharma. Like he did in most of the other games in the tournament, the Indian captain went all out on the attack and smashed 47 off just 29 balls. He hit four fours and as many sixes which helped India race to 70 in eight overs.
Kohli’s arrival solidified the start. He knocked the ball around and found the odd boundary. Shubman Gill who had a relatively quiet tournament till then, started upping the ante. He raced to 79 but cramps forced him retire hurt.
It was in the 23rd over that Gill walked back and Kohli was batting on 30 off 40 balls before he picked up pace. The latter notched up his half-century in 59 balls as Shreyas Iyer started opening up and found the boundary on multiple occasions at the other end.
Kohli didn’t hold back either as he continued to get boundaries regularly. He quickly got into the 90s before he scaled hundred number 50 in ODI cricket. Tendulkar along with the Wankhede rose to give Kohli a standing ovation. There was Sir Vivian Richards (another man who Kohli has adored) in the stands as well. All of them paid tribute to the modern-day legend as he raised his bat and waved it all around Wankhede.
The Delhi-born cricketer got 117 before he was dismissed in the 44th over. It was not before he put India on course of a massive target. Shreyas Iyer’s magnificent 105 which came off 70 balls along with KL Rahul’s cameo of 39 then pushed India a mammoth 397/4 in 50 overs.
Mohammed Shami’s stellar performance of 7/57 ensured India booked their place in the final of the 2023 World Cup. Shami, Iyer, Gill and Rohit were standout performers as well but for the magnitude of the achievement, Kohli was the focus of every single person around the world.
The world was at Kohli’s feet. Not only did he break his ODI World Cup semi-final hoodoo but he also broke his idol, Sachin Tendulkar’s record for the most number of hundreds in the history of ODI cricket. 50 centuries in a mere 291 ODI games is a staggering record.
‘Stuff of dreams’: Kohli said about the record knock
It’s just stuff of dreams, as Kohli himself put it. He got his 49th with his best friend AB de Villiers present and now, he completed a record-shattering 50th in front of his idol and love. And look at the irony, it’s the same day that Tendulkar stepped foot onto a cricket field for the first time in international cricket.
“It’s stuff of dreams, Anushka was sitting right there, Sachin paaji was there in the stands. I mean, it’s very difficult for me to explain this, but if I could paint the perfect picture, I would want this to be the picture. My life partner, the person I love the most, she’s sitting there. My hero, he’s sitting there. And I was able to get the 50th in front of all of them and all these fans at Wankhede as well, such a historic venue. It was amazing,” Kohli was quoted saying to the broadcasters in the mid-innings.
Not a lot of people will remember but the 117 was a trademark and vintage Kohli knock. He ran hard, he stamped his authority on the New Zealand bowlers from time to time and paced his innings beautifully. All of it seems lost in Kohli’s stupendous feat.
15th November 2023, a day Kohli will never forget. It’s a day when he scaled the unthinkable. It’s a day that he reigned supreme and stood tall on top of the world.
