Team India won the three-match ODI series against New Zealand, thanks to the spectacular performance by the young Shubman Gill and the bowlers, especially Mohammed Shami, Siraj, And Shardul Thakur.
Former Indian batter-turned-commentator Aakash Chopra has talked about Virat Kohli’s poor performance in the India-New Zealand ODI series proving that even in-form batting superstars cannot hit a century in every match.
In India’s massive total of 385/9 in the third and final ODI on Tuesday, January 24, in Indore, Kohli hit 36 runs off 27 deliveries. After that, the Indian bowlers dismissed the Black Caps for 295 to seal a convincing 90-run victory.
While expressing his views on his Youtube Channel, Aakash Chopra talked about Kohli’s batting graph and his performance based on the analysis of the recently concluded India-New Zealand series.
The former Indian opener said, “Virat Kohli’s bat did not fire in this series. He scored 36 runs. After the 46th hundred, it seemed he would score a century in every match. Everyone was saying that but it does not happen like that. It’s a gentle reminder to everyone that a century cannot be scored in every match, that’s international cricket.”
Chopra observed that following Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma’s spectacular centuries, the hosts looked to be going to a 400-plus total but fell short of doing so.
“The way the openers started hitting, it seemed a T20 match was on. India had scored 170-180 runs in 20 overs, that many only being scored in T20s. Then both the openers scored centuries. I thought one guy would score a double century and India would go beyond 400 but that did not happen, added Chopra.”
After this series, India will now head towards the three-match T20I series against the Kiwis. However, in this series, many senior players including Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have been rested in order to prepare deeply for the upcoming Border-Gavaskar trophy. For the T20 series against New Zealand, Hardik Pandya has been named as the skipper of the side.
