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Kohli 'made a conscious effort to strike at a higher pace' but the rush of wickets forced a slowdown
Having rediscovered his mojo in the Asia Cup with back-to-back fifties, Kohli says "what happens in the change room is the only thing that matters"
Virat Kohli let his magical wrists take over, and a 150kph delivery from Mohammad Hasnain went sailing over deep midwicket. It was his half-century - his second in a row - off 36 balls, in the 18th over, and the Indian dressing room was on its feet.
Only a week ago, in his 100th T20I, also against Pakistan, Kohli had been scratchy. A thick edge was dropped in the slips second ball he faced, inside edges rolled past the stumps, lofted hits landed in no man's land, top edges flew to the boundary, and attempted drives ended up only being sliced. But this Sunday was different. The fluency was there, and the timing from the get-go was all there.
picked the length early and rocked back to hammer a pull between wide long-one and deep midwicket. In the 11th, he swivelled - head right over the ball, wrists on top of the bounce - to wallop Hasnain to the square-leg boundary. Naseem Shah wasn't spared either. His first delivery to Kohli was slapped to the cover-point boundary after the batter made room by moving to leg and going down the pitch.
Kohli was in his element. The fall of wickets wasn't going to alter his tempo, especially since he had come to grips with the surface early. Prior to the match, head coach Rahul Dravid had touched upon the importance of assessing conditions quickly and aiming for above-par scores. It was clear this surface didn't grip as much and with one boundary at just 62 metres, India had to give themselves the cushion of a big score.
But from being ultra-aggressive, Kohli had to slow down in the second half of his innings because of the rush of wickets, which he later said was the difference between getting to 200 and stopping at 181. But he did give a peek into the team's mindset when he said the loss of wickets in the middle overs in pushing for "20-25 extra" wasn't a worry, because when it does come off, it will make a difference.
"If you've seen the way we've been playing, it's given us the results we need, and in our middle overs, the run rate has also improved," Kohli said of India's approach. "It's something I, as a batsman, really took keen notice of, and I knew that is one area we need to keep improving on. We've spoken about this that sometimes it won't come off, the way you want and today, we lost a few wickets in the middle phase which didn't allow us to go towards the 200 targets.
"The camaraderie with the boys is amazing. The environment within the team is amazing, so I'm absolutely loving playing at the moment all over again and feeling good the way I'm batting"
Kohli
Because after [Deepak] Hooda and me, it was Bhuvi [Bhuvneshwar Kumar], so the bowlers were to follow. That makes a bit of a difference, but we do possess the skills to analyse the situation and play accordingly as well.
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