An unfortunate injury to Hardik Pandya midway through an over during a match between India and Bangladesh at the world cup 2023 forced Rohit Sharma to summon Virat Kohli to bowl the remaining three deliveries.
He didn’t bowl again but the fans wanted to see one of the greatest batters to have played the game roll his arm over more. A couple of games saw them chanting in unison – ‘Kohli ko bowling do (Give the ball to Kohli).
And their wishes were finally answered when Rohit asked Kohli to have a go against the Netherlands in what was the final league match of the world cup 2023.
And Kohli didn’t disappoint. He picked up a wicket, and that too of Netherlands captain Scott Edwards leading to some memorable reactions from his India teammates, his wife Anushka Sharma and the Bengaluru crowd gathered in huge numbers to witness the contest.
Edwards is Kohli’s fifth wicket of his ODI bowling career and the first after January 2014 when he got rid of New Zealand legend Brendon McCullum in Wellington.
Interestingly, four of the five victims of his have been wicketkeeper-batters with Alastair Cook being the lone specialist batter.
Here’s a list of Kohli’s ODI wickets
- 16 September 2011: vs England; Alastair Cook on 50 in Cardiff
- 20 October 2011: vs England; Craig Kieswetter on 36 in Mohali
- 5 December 2013: vs South Africa; Quinton de Kock on 135 in Johannesburg
- 31 January 2014: vs New Zealand; Brendon McCullum on 23 in Wellington
- November 12 2023: vs Netherlands; Scott Edwards on 17 in Bengaluru
Kohli has taken four wickets in T20Is as well but has none in Test cricket so far.
In fact, India seem to give all their part-timers some practice with the Netherlands struggling in the chase of a mammoth target of 411 in Bengaluru.
After Kohli’s success, Rohit gave the ball to Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav too with the two tweakers testing their luck.
Kohli produced decent figures, taking 1/13 from three overs. However, Gill and Suryakumar remained wicketless in their combined four overs.
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