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Journalism of Courage
With the least of effort,a sublime short arm punch by Virat Kohli one that came bang off the sweetspot of the bat beat a packed off-side field,perfectly bisecting the tiny gap between point and covers. Twenty-two yards away,Shaminda Eranga,the debutant fast bowler,dropped his shoulders. His good length ball had done little wrong and Kohli hadnt even put any brute behind it. Yet,the defensive push was enough for the ball to race away to the boundary.
Such has been Kohlis touch in Lanka and over the past many months that he can do no wrong,not even in T20Is,a format hes struggled in.
As India took on Sri Lanka in the only T20 (and final) game of the tour,Kohli pricked once again into his rich vein of form to take India home. He scored his highest T20I score of 68 to give India the match.
While Irfan Pathans superb opening spell of three wickets won him the Man of the Match award,Kohli snatched his second Man of the Series award this time for his work in a one-match series. If Pathans performance over the course of this tour is considered a breakthrough of sorts,the same could be said about Kohlis performance in the shortest version of the game on Tuesday.
Before the match at the Pallekele International Stadium,Kohlis highest score in the format was 31. He may have sealed his Test berth and may have become the greatest one-day player since the World Cup,T20s for India somehow never brought the best out of the Delhi lad. His classy innings against the Lankans,will be a start,however.
Unlike a typically destructive Kohli innings,this one wasnt a big-hit fest. The strokes remained grounded for the entirety of his 48-ball hour-long stay in the middle. He pummelled Angelo Mathews for consecutive fours (his first two) in the third over,and Eranga went for three in four balls in the next. After Thisara Perera too was hit for a hat-trick of boundaries by Kohli in the sixth,the Lankans perhaps sensed that it was going to be a Kohli day.
With India bulldozing through for a big score,Kohli fell to Eranga in the 17th. Trying to clear midwicket for a rare six,the ball,though cleanly hit,found the only fielder posted there. And soon after,the middle-order struggled to keep up the same momentum,taking India to a relatively meagre 155.
Pathan,however,decapitated the Lankan batting order during the chase just when it was looking to surge. He took three wickets,striking with Tillakaratne Dilshan in his first,Upul Tharanga in the second and Mahela Jayawardene in the third. The last one was the most crucial of the lot.
Jayawardene had unhooked by clobbering Umesh Yadav for four fours in the fourth over of the game,and was looking good for many more. But thats when Pathan struck,trapping him leg before ensuring Kohli did not steal all the limelight on this tour.
Brief scores: Ind 155/3 (V Kohli 68,S Raina 34*; S Eranga 2/30) bt SL (Jayawardene 26; A Dinda 4/19,I Pathan 3/27)
