India ace batter Virat Kohli smashed his 71st international century while playing against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup Super 4 match on Thursday (September 8). After achieving the milestone, he became only the second batter in the world to surpass 3500 T20I runs after Rohit Sharma.
In absence of Sharma, Kohli came as an opener and hit a brisk half century, in the process of reaching the ton. The right hand batter has been seen in a great form from the beginning of Asia Cup as he made three half, becoming the first batter to surpass 200 runs in the tournament.
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In the post-match presentation, Kohli said, “Today was the build-up of the last few games, I batted out of my skin to be honest and I surprised myself. What surprised me was my 60s became failures; quite shocking for me, batting pretty well and contributing but doesn’t seem to be enough”
“I said, God has blessed me with a lot of good times in the past, and that’s why I’m in this position where these things can be spoken about. I have absolutely no shame in admitting that God is blessing us all with everything in our destiny, we just have to work hard. So I went back to the drawing board, came back fresh, came back excited,” Kohli added.
The former India captain looked very confident against Afghanistan as he went for good shots from the very first ball. Further, he stitched an impressive 119 run-stand with KL Rahul for the first wicket. Both batters reached their respective half centuries, giving Indian their first century partnership in the tournament.
KL Rahul has also been termed to be out-of form as he didn’t manage to score many runs in this tournament but against the Afghan bowlers, he registered 62 off 41 balls.
India and Afghanistan played quite well in the Group stage, winning both the matches but in Super 4 stage, the results were upside down for both the teams. While India lost to Pakistan and Sri Lanka, on the other hand, Afghanistan lost to Sri Lanka in their first match and then lost a heated encounter against Pakistan.
Pakistan and Sri Lanka have qualified for the final match which is scheduled to be on Sunday (September 11).
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