Pakistan captain Mohammad Rizwan lavished praise on former skipper Virat Kohli after India registered a six-wicket win against Men in Green to seal their berth for the Champions Trophy 2025 semifinal. Former India captain Kohli who recently faced a lot of criticism for his performance regained his form against the arch-rivals clash by smashing his 82nd ODI century.
Kohli who got cheaply dismissed in India's Champions Trophy opener clash against Bangladesh smashed an unbeaten match-winning century against Pakistan to get his mojo back.
"I'm totally impressed with Virat Kohli's ethics. I'll praise his fitness and efforts, people say he's out of form, but tonight he did it effortlessly" said Mohammad Rizwan during post match conference.
"We won the toss, but we didn't get the benefit of toss. Their bowlers bowled very well. Me and Saud Shakeel, we wanted to take it deep. Poor shot selection. They put us under pressure. Whenever you lose, you didn't perform in all departments. We wanted to squeeze, but we couldn't. Kohli and Gill batted very well and took the game away. We need to improve in our fielding. We did a lot of mistakes in this match" Rizwan also said.
Dominating a six-wicket win against Pakistan in the second league match should be enough for Rohit Sharma-led side, who are now top of Group A with four points, to make the last four. However, Pakistan are staring at early elimination from the eight-team event after their second successive loss.
Chasing a tricky 242, India rode on Kohli's 51st ODI ton, Shreyas Iyer's classy 67-ball 56 and Shubman Gill's brilliant start of 46 off 52 balls to overhaul the target with more than seven overs to spare.