Virat Kohli didn't deserve to be Player of the Match. India were losing...: Manjrekar's brutal 'strike rate' attack
Sanjay Manjrekar reckons Virat Kohli did not deserve the Player of the Match award in T20 World Cup final
Virat Kohli pulled off an MS Dhoni in the T20 World Cup final last week in Barbados. After struggling to find a rhythm in the first seven innings, where he scored just 75 runs to record his worst-ever show in a T20 World Cup edition, Kohli, just like Dhoni in the 2011 ODI World Cup, carved out a match-winning knock of a 59-ball 76 in the final against South Africa at the Kensington Oval to help India win by seven runs. However, former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar wasn't quite happy with the knock, for which Kohli was given the Player of the Match award, as he re-ignited the 'strike rate' debate.
Despite losing three wickets in the powerplay, India finished with 45 runs in the first six overs, where Kohli smashed four boundaries. However, India's recovery, owing to a 72-run stand for the fourth-wicket was single-handedly pulled off by Axar Patel, who hit 47 runs off 31 balls to propel India to 106 for four in the 14th over, a period where Kohli did not hit a single boundary.
The knock also allowed the next batter, Shivam Dube, to swing his bat freely, scoring a quickfire 16-ball 27 amid Kohli roaring back to hit a flurry of boundaries in the death over to help India set a 177-run target.
Speaking to ESPNCricinfo, Manjrekar reckoned that Kohli was bit too slow in his knock, which not only left Hardik Pandya, India's in-form middle-order batter, with just two balls to face, but also left the team in a precarious spot.
By playing that innings, Hardik Pandya, one of their most devastating batters, had just two balls to face. So I thought India's batting was good, but Virat Kohli had potentially played an innings that would've put India in a tight corner. And it almost proved to be that, before these guys' bowlers came in the end," Manjrekar said.
The former India batter reckoned that had it not been for the bowlers in the death overs, the Men in Blue would have lost the final against South Africa, who were almost in with 90 per cent chances of lifting their maiden world title in men's cricket after Heinrich Klaasen's 23-ball fifty.
Manjrekar, hence, feels that a bowler should have been adjudged as the Player of the Match, rather than Kohli, who only struck at 128 in the match.
"India were in a losing position, 90 percent winning chances (for South Africa). The complete turnaround actually saved Virat Kohli's innings because he played virtually half the innings with a strike-rate of 128. My Player of the Match would've been a bowler because they actually took the game from the jaws of defeat and won it for India," he added.
India eventually won the final by just seven runs, winning their second T20 World Cup trophy and first in 17 years.
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