Team India skipper Virat Kohli looked animated during the 3rd T20I against England at the Narendra Modi Stadium on March 16 (Tuesday) over sloppy fielding. In one such instance, Kohli hurled a mouthful to young fast bowler Shardul Thakur after a sloppy fielding at the leg-side boundary. India lost the game to trail 2-1 in the five-match series.
Bowling first, much like in the first T20I, England had threatened to blow India away with pace upfront. Mark Wood in particular bowled with searing pace, using the short ball to good effect to keep India honest. Others chipped in as well, and they never allowed the run rate to go above six. That was until the 15th over, after which Virat Kohli just went berserk without actually going berserk.
The talismanic run-scorer powered India to 69 in the last five overs to give them a fighting chance with 156 runs on the board. Kohli remained unbeaten on 77 runs from 46 deliveries. In reply, Jos Buttler needed just a couple of overs to get his eye in. He used his feet well throughout his innings – moving forward, back, right, and left to play a gem of an innings – his highest T20I score.
He was involved in a couple of half-ton partnerships too with Dawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow. Washington Sundar was the last bowler introduced by Virat Kohli and he did ignite some hopes in the Indian camp when he got Malan stumped, but the Buttler-Bairstow duo extinguished that in style. They rotated the strike well, ran plenty of twos, and scored boundaries at regular intervals to hunt down the total with 10 balls to spare.
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Virat Kohli loses cool at Shardul Thakur
Meanwhile, India were sloppy on the field which hurt them badly. A dropped catch from the skipper along with a couple of misfields didn’t augur well for the hosts. In one such instance during the 12th over of England’s run-chase Jonny Bairstow edged one towards square leg where Shardul Thakur was stationed. He was late on the ball and his throw was directionless as it allowed Bairstow and Jos Buttler to steal another run. Virat Kohli was clearly not happy with Shardul’s sloppy effort and was seen hurling abuses to the pacer.
Watch the video here:
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