Asia Cup 2022: Vijay Deverakonda hopeful of Virat Kohli scoring half-century
Aug 28, 2022
Dubai [UAE], August 28 : As battle lines were drawn on the D-day of India-Pakistan's opening Asia Cup clash on Sunday in Dubai, south star Vijay Deverakonda paced up the thrill in the stadium as he said that he's hopeful of Virat Kohli at least hitting a half-century in the match.
Exuding high energy and hope, Deverakonda spoke to Jatin Sapru and Irfan Pathan, the presenters of the match and highlighted his hopes ahead of the thriller match.
"I am very high on energy. I am hopeful that Kohli will hit at least a 50 today. Once he gets over 20, he can cross the mark. It's his 100th match and I can't wait to see it," said the Liger actor during the pre-match presentation at the Dubai International stadium.
Irfan Pathan had earlier stressed on Kohli's energy on the field which aligned with the south star's remarks.
"When Virat Kohli came on the field, the crowd just went behind him. I've seen this with Sachin Tendulkar, they don't care he hasn't scored a century in 2 years," said Pathan.
Earlier in the day, members of the Indian cricket team extended their support to star batter Virat Kohli who will represent the country in the T20I format for the 100th time today when he takes to the field for a blockbuster clash against Pakistan at the Asia Cup 2022, becoming the first Indian to play a century of games across all formats of the sport.
Ever since his T20I debut against Zimbabwe back in 2010, the former Indian Skipper has been one of India's most reliable batters in the shortest format of the game and has enviable numbers and some records to his name.
On his debut T20I match, Virat had scored an unbeaten 26 off 21 balls and formed a 64-run stand which helped India win the match by six wickets. Ever since then, his stature has grown massively in international cricket.
Since then, he has represented India in 99 T20I matches, across which he has scored 3,308 runs at an average of 50.12. Virat's individual best performance in this format is 94*. His strike rate in this format is 137.66. 30 half-centuries have come out of his bat in this format and he is yet to score a century here.
He is the third-highest run scorer in T20I cricket, following Rohit Sharma (3,487) and New Zealand's Martin Guptill (3,497) and his country's second highest-run scorer.
Virat has second most fifty-plus scores in T20Is, with 30. At first is his skipper Rohit Sharma who has 31 fifty-plus scores, including four centuries.
He is the fourth-fastest batter to reach 1,000 runs in T20I cricket (27 innings) and the second fastest to reach 2,000 runs (56 innings) and 2,500 runs (68 innings).
Virat has won the second highest number of 'Player of the Match' awards in T20Is, with 12, following Afghanistan's Mohammed Nabi (13). He also has the most number of 'Player of the Series' awards in T20I format, with a total of seven such awards.T20Is.
Coming to the match, India will start its Asia Cup campaign against Pakistan today.
Today, all eyes will be glued to the TVs, with the fans hoping that India not only avenges their previous loss to Pakistan in T20 World Cup 2021, but Virat also scores big.
India: Rohit Sharma (captain), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan
Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Shadab Khan, Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Hasan Ali, Naseem Shah, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Qadir, Mohammad Hasnain.