As Logan van Beek prepared to bowl the last delivery of India’s innings, a simple thought arose in mind. Suryakumar Yadav will smack this for six – and he did. A leg stump half-volley was perhaps one of the easiest last over deliveries SKY has faced, and duly dispatched it over square leg. If it were a tougher delivery, even then the batter would have attempted a slog over the fence. This was just easier.
Give SKY 20 balls and he will give you 40 runs – this should be written on every dressing room he visits. It has become a surety, if not a trend, because that’s the brand of cricket he plays. There is an assuredness about him, and his batting style. It may be high risk, but at the same time, the dividends are at a premium too.
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“He was the biggest threat to bowl to. With this open stance, the margin of error is smaller… say compared to Virat Kohli,” said Paul van Meekeren.
Cynics would take that statement lightly. Ardent fans might even think of it in jest that a Dutch bowler is putting SKY above Kohli (and the other Indian batters).
Truth be told, it is the way entire world cricket thinks now. And don’t undermine the Dutch at all – there is so much T20I cricket played by associate nations. They might not excel yet at longer formats, but they know mostly all there is to know about the shortest format.
When told, SKY accepted the compliment. Encapsulated within this truth, and compliment, is India’s changed reality from the 2021 T20 World Cup. Last year, when India had travelled to the UAE, it was on the shoulders of the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul. The trio came a cropper as India faced an embarrassing exit, and the world woke up to a sad reality. These heavyweights still matter, but they didn’t really have the individual or collective X-factor to win the T20 World Cup.
In 2022, things have taken an alternative turn with SKY in the mix as India’s foremost T20 batter. While nobody considered the Men in Blue favourites a week ago, they still arrived on Australian shores with SKY as the main focal point of the batting group. Things have changed a tad though – Kohli has hit form, and such wonderful form, that it is now a wonder if he was ever out of touch.
You will never forget that straight six from the Pakistan game. His six over cover against the Netherlands in Sydney was equally wondrous. Even so, the two shots signified different points. The MCG six was about regaining self-belief and portraying that he could still do it. The SCG six was about announcing to the world that he is now back in immaculate form, and everyone should be wary. If the MCG six was about genius ability, this SCG six was about pure timing.
Outside off and then driven so well over cover, that it cleared the fence – effortless. From memory, Kohli played a similar shot against Pakistan in Birmingham during the 2017 Champions Trophy. Since then, he may or may not have played similar shots. Perhaps he played once in the IPL a couple years ago, before he lost form. The underlying point being, this SCG six was similarly effortless like five years ago. A phoenix has arisen from the ashes of Kohli’s struggles, and he may just conquer this World Cup for India.
As soon as Rohit was dismissed, Kohli switched gears. He took onus while a new batter had arrived at the other end. Even so, his partner wasn’t just someone who needed good measure of the conditions. Mostly SKY bats on a different pitch to others. If Rohit-Kohli needed time to get going, SKY batted at a higher rate from the get go, underlining once again why he is the primary threat in this T20 line-up.
Kohli enjoys batting with SKY, of course. It’s like a switch that flicks on in his mind, asking him to take more risks and accelerate, or control the scoring and hold off at one end. They have been involved in four high-value T20I partnerships, and the strike-rate for this duo is a humongous 205. In simpler terms, Kohli-SKY score 2.05 runs every ball they face.
From Kohli’s perspective, you can see why he enjoys SKY’s company. Recently, he wasn’t among the runs and was more than happy to allow his partner to take charge of proceedings. Of late, with his touch coming back, it now seems Kohli would be eager to take command himself, and it would make for a double whammy of sorts for the opposition.
For SKY wouldn’t hold off under any circumstances. His perspective is very simple too, and gets simpler batting with Kohli. A very good runner between the wickets, someone who can strike at will, and play along as per the situation requires. After all, it takes two to tango.
Perhaps the most positive outlook of this partnership is it allows momentum to seep through from the top-order, all the way across the middle, and if needed, sets up a base for the likes of Hardik Pandya and/or Dinesh Karthik to do their thing. And this attacking momentum is what Team India is now always looking for. On Thursday, Kohli-SKY converted that 7/over to 11.87/over taking 95 runs off the last eight overs.
Sterner tests lie ahead, of course, starting with South Africa in Perth. Even so, Kohli-SKY could just be the partnership that ignites Indian dreams into reality.
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