India’s opening match of the T20 World Cup 2024 saw the talisman, Virat Kohli, have a dismal performance against Ireland on Wednesday. With an average of 81.5 prior to the match, Kohli put up a rare dismal performance in the tournament’s history, managing just 1 run off 5 balls on a challenging wicket that gave pacers varying bounce. But before Kohli could inflict his destruction on the Ireland team, the great Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar issued a “Pakistan challenge” to the first batter.
Despite his rare batsmanship failure against Ireland, Gavaskar is unfazed by Kohli’s performance and says a great batsman like him would want to make up for the missed opportunity by scoring twice as many runs against Pakistan.
“I see it this way: outstanding players like Joe Root, Virat Kohli, Babar Azam, and Steve Smith. They want to make up for their one-match setback in the following encounter. Double the runs is what they aim to score. Consequently, he wants to score twice as many runs as he did against Ireland, regardless of how many runs he did get. And after India defeated Ireland, who better to score twice as many runs as against Pakistan?” Gavaskar stated on Star Sports.
India now holds the record for the most straight victories in T20 cricket against a single opponent after defeating Ireland. The highlights of India’s eight-wicket victory over Ireland to start their ICC T20 World Cup campaign included a half-century by captain Rohit Sharma, excellent finishing from Rishabh Pant, and blistering performances from Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah.