An in-form Kohli can leave bowlers massively frustrated

Match Day show, Agar said Kohli's ability to rotate strike leaves bowlers with little chance to exert pressure

Mar 6, 2025 - 03:21
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An in-form Kohli can leave bowlers massively frustrated

An in-form Kohli can leave bowlers massively frustrated

Match Day show, Agar said Kohli's ability to rotate strike leaves bowlers with little chance to exert pressure

Bowlers struggle to build pressure on Virat Kohli in ODI cricket, and one key reason for that is his ability to rotate the strike, Ashton Agar said on ESPNcricinfo's Match Day show after the batter's match-winning 84 in the first semi-final of the Champions Trophy in Dubai.

Agar also said Kohli's ability to manage the pressure from one end by finding the gaps makes him among the most difficult batters to bowl to in ODI cricket, and that combined with the other batters' big shots makes it very difficult for teams to defend totals against India. Terming his innings as a "masterclass", Agar said bowlers rarely feel like they're on top of a batter of Kohli's quality.

"That's the frustrating part about bowling to him," Agar said in the post-match show on ESPNcricinfo. "It is not the damage that he can do to the fence, it's just the fact that you cannot build pressure on him. So it's really hard to get him out in a sense. You never really feel like you're on top of him unless the ball is really spinning. And you don't get a lot of pitches in one-day cricket like that.

"He has this fantastic ability to hit your best ball, the top of middle stump, slightly spinning away, he holds the bat's face slightly longer than other batters do, opens it in the last second, and hits it in the cover point gap. He's probably the best in the world at doing that and he's very difficult to build pressure on.

"India batted around Virat beautifully. The guys who came in kept pushing the rate and allowed Virat to do his thing, hit the odd boundary and just keep ticking over. I saw a stat that Virat has scored the most singles since the year 2000, which is phenomenal. It was a bit of a masterclass from him and all the batters contributed nicely."

Kohli scored 64 of his 84 runs on Tuesday with ones and twos to slowly take the game away from Australia. Although he has been dismissed six times to legspinners since the start of 2024 for an average of only 12, he dominated Tanveer Sangha and Adam Zampa to score 35 in 33 balls against the leg-spinning pair before falling to the latter. Sanjay Manjrekar observed that Kohli was back to playing shots off the back foot.

"Now you have five fielders inside the circle, so it's not easy as it used to be - like during our times - when you had four fielders," Manjrekar said. "Very rarely has he hit the ball straight to the fielder and hasn't got a run.

"So that one issue against spin that he had where he couldn't rotate strike, hopefully that's out of his system now. Because today was an affirmation that he is back to that very nice footwork, off the back foot playing late, finding gaps all the time. He was the best batter to find gaps from both sides [on Tuesday].

Anil Kumble said he continued to be impressed by Kohli's propensity to make tricky targets look easy.

"He rarely makes a mistake," Kumble said. "He's totally in control. Especially in run chases. In a chase of around 265, he's in total control except for the one chance to Maxwell. It's not just this innings but every time he bats in a run chase, there's hardly any loss in control. He's always in control of this situation."

Kohli's latest half-century marked his third 50-plus score in Champions Trophy semi-finals and his fifth in ICC knockout games. He is only one half-century away from Sachin Tendulkar's record of six fifty-plus scores in ICC knockout games, while India are one more win away from making it two ICC titles in a row.


Keshav Maharaj goes from hunter to hunted as New Zealand shelve the fear factor

Pivotal assault on left-arm spinner condemns South Africa to another semi-final exit


Keshav Maharaj smiled when the was hit for four. It was the next shot, like the dramatically raised voice from an authority figure which leaves no doubt who is in charge, that wiped the smile from Maharaj's face.

Rachin Ravindra danced down the pitch in the Champions Trophy semi-final with the quiet menace of a leopard, padded feet and silent limbs. He got close enough to pick it up off the pitch flat over long-on and yet well over the boundary. On a pleasant March day, as a cool breeze made for unseasonally hospitable playing conditions, New Zealand began to breathe comfortably again.

South Africa's hand had just begun to close around their opponents' throats, with Maharaj initiating the squeezing. New Zealand had made an excellent start after opting to bat first, unconcerned by the dew; they handily beat Pakistan a month earlier defending a total in even cooler conditions. Spinners had bowled 26 of those overs, and Mitchell Santner told ESPNcricinfo bowling under lights at the Gaddafi did not perturb his side.

South Africa turned to Maharaj, so effective at playing spoiler for any opposition side in full flow. In the previous game against England, he bowled 36 dot balls in an asphyxiating spell, the fourth-most this tournament and the third-highest England have faced in ODI cricket since January 2024. He was carrying on where he left off, leaking just 14 in his first four.

Ravindra and Kane Williamson, both beautifully set on a featherbed and in full flow, had managed just 21 runs in the last six overs. With Marco Jansen struggling and Aiden Markram only passing a fitness test late on the eve of the match, South Africa barely had a sixth bowling option to turn to, and Maharaj needed to deliver. Until now, he had been. "I couldn't actually rotate the strike as well as I wanted and he was changing his pace really nicely," Ravindra said later.

But, like a signal from a lioness to her pack, New Zealand collectively moved in for the kill, and honed in on Maharaj. If South Africa had expected problems with their sixth bowler, wait till they realised they had issues with number one. With Ravindra leading the way, Williamson, the grandfather clock of this side, rushed on. His innings was, until then, the classically sedate cantata to the punk-rock audacity of his young team-mate's, having glided to 40 off 57. Here, he raised the tempo, charging down the surface and picking Maharaj up for a midwicket six. Even as Temba Bavuma's bowling options dwindled, he had little choice but to take Maharaj out of the attack.

"For me, left-hander, left-arm spinner, it's always your match-up," Ravindra said later. "Especially when he was bowling into the wind, so I decided to take a couple of balls down. And Kane just pushed the tempo so beautifully."

Hiding Maharaj away for five overs, though, did not soften New Zealand's approach towards him. Once that first hit connects, and blood is drawn, the fighter no longer appears as invincible. New Zealand plundered 42 off those five, sitting pretty at 201 with just the solitary loss in 32 overs. Maharaz was brought on again in an attempt to asphyxiate, but the room was no longer claustrophobic.

Williamson leapt out of his crease again, lofting Maharaj for another six that sank into the sightscreen, taking with it South African hopes of any leash on this New Zealand side. Since Ravindra's takedown, this pair - against whom Maharaj bowled all but 10 balls of his spell - scored 45 runs in 26 against him. Maharaj would end with 0 for 65, his most expensive ODI spell since his debut match in 2017.

"I think [Ravindra and Williamson] played particularly well against Keshav," South Africa coach Rob Walter said. "The ball did spin a little bit more in in the second innings which would have contributed to that but, as I said, they played him very well. Kesh is a world-class bowler, we know that, so to put him under pressure and to turn the tide a little bit there changed the flow of the game, so we have to commend the two world-class batters batting together."

Before this game, it was this battle of the left-arm spinners, Maharaj and Santner, which appeared destined to script the fate of the middle overs. A couple of hours later, Santner introduced himself in similar circumstances, with South Africa kicking on after a platform, walking that tightrope between aggression and wicket-preservation. Rassie van der Dussen pumped him for six the ball after Williamson dropped Bavuma, and South Africa's vengeance for the battering their star man received was on.

The following Santner over, Bavuma tried to go over the top again, only to mis-hit it straight into Williamson's lap. With Santner understanding perfectly the value of bowling second on a deteriorating pitch, he darted one in fast that ripped off middle and clipped van der Dussen's off stump. Four deliveries later, it was Klaasen he snared as South Africa clung on for dear life. It was not the flashiest part of a game in which 674 runs were scored, but Santner would concede 22 fewer than his South African counterpart, and take three more wickets. Santner had tipped them off that tightrope.

When Maharaj bowled his final over, Williamson defended the fourth and fifth balls, then nudged him away for a single to sign off. Just two came off it, but Maharaj was no longer smiling. The direction of the contest, he understood, had turned irreversibly when two talented batters decided they need not hunt for opposition weakness. They had nothing to fear, even against the best.

It feels, as New Zealand take that one step closer to glory, like a thought they might try and hold until Sunday.

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