India batter Virat Kohli rolled his arm over in front of his Indian Premier League (IPL) home crowd at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru and even managed to dismissed Netherlands skipper Scott Edwards in their ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 match on Diwali day on Sunday. Kohli equalled England all-rounder Ben Stokes’s incredible record as well by picking up this wicket for the first time after 10 years.
Kohli and Stokes are the only cricketers to have scored a fifty and picked up a wicket three times in ODI cricket. The former India captain has scored 51 off 58 balls and then claimed 1/13 with the ball.
WATCH Virat Kohli picking up a wicket against Netherlands in ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 match HERE…
Virat Kohli bowling and The Wicket Celebration ___pic.twitter.com/6mjAp0WZBC
— Virat Kohli Fan Club (@Trend_VKohli) November 12, 2023
The last two times that Kohli achieved this feat was against England in Cardiff in 2011 and against New Zealand in Wellington in 2014. However, India went on to lose both of those matches. In fact, Kohli had scored a hundred and picked up wicket in Cardiff but England went on to win a rain-hit match by DLS method.
India posted a massive 410 runs after batting first against Netherlands in Bengaluru and went on to post their ninth successive win in World Cup 2023 by 160 runs on Sunday. Even skipper Rohit Sharma rolled his arm over – the ninth bowlers for the hosts on Sunday.
“We enjoyed the company of each other once the tournament started. We wanted to play the game on the field with a lot of fun, excitement and that reflected on our performances. When we try and do these kind of things, we keep the atmosphere nice and healthy outside, guys tend to perform really well without any burden. When you have five bowlers, you want to create those options within the team,” Rohit Sharma said in the post-match presentation.
“Today we had nine (bowling) options, it’s important, this was the game where we could have tried certain things. The seamers bowling those wide yorkers when it was not needed, but we wanted to do that. As a bowling unit, we wanted to try doing something different and see what we can achieve,” he added.
Even head coach Rahul Dravid had jokingly commented on Kohli’s bowling earlier in the World Cup 2023 campaign. “The fact is that we will not be in a position to have a proper sixth option,” Dravid said.
“We do have the option to call upon our wrong-footed, in-swinging menace. And with the crowd behind him, I’d back him for a couple of overs there and a few wickets. The crowd was demanding his bowling in the last game. We came very close to giving him an over. And then we’ve got Surya who can turn his arm over a little bit. And Rohit’s bowled a bit as well.
“I mean, obviously, the sixth option is something that Hardik gave us. But we have been playing the last four games without the sixth bowling option. We also played a couple of games in the Australia series before the World Cup without the sixth option,” Dravid had said.