In awe of Virat Kohli’s meteoric rise, India team director Ravi Shastri on Thursday said the swashbuckling batsman seems like a mirror-image of West Indian great Viv Richards and “wields his willow li
In awe of Virat Kohli’s meteoric rise, India team director Ravi Shastri on Thursday said the swashbuckling batsman seems like a mirror-image of West Indian great Viv Richards and “wields his willow like a fencer does his sword.”
“Some of his (Kohli) batting reminded me of Viv — like the way the great man dominated all formats of the game he played. He is an in your face kind of batsman,” Shastri said as he analysed the present Indian team ahead of the World T20 at home next month.
The comparison cannot be too off the mark given that Richards himself has stated that he sees a bit of himself in the flamboyant Indian, praise that Kohli finds surreal.
The right-hander sizzled with half-centuries in all three T20 games against Australia last month, to go with two hundreds in the preceding ODIs. Shastri feels Kohli, combined with the equally devastating Rohit Sharma and the revived Shikhar Dhawan, make for the “best top three in the world”. “Shikhar has a license to be destructive at the top, that’s the role he has, and once his chances came off, there was no stopping him. Rohit is all class: brilliant, explosive and his nonchalance is frightening.”
