‘Virat Kohli took the game away…’: Mohammed Rizwan praises India star’s fitness, hard work after Champions Trophy defeat

Pakistan’s skipper Mohammed Rizwan was in awe of Indian batter Virat Kohli’s fitness and zeal as he stole away a tight run chase from them in Dubai on Sunday and perhaps even their chance of winning back the Champions Trophy. Notably, Pakistan are the defending champions of the tournament, having being gotten their by handing a devastating victory to Virat led India during the 2017 final.

Speaking about Kohli in the post-match presentation, Rizwan said, “First, let’s talk about Virat Kohli. I am surprised at his hard work. He must have worked so hard. The world says he is out of form, but he comes to such big matches, which the world is waiting for, and he easily hits the ball – and this is where we don’t want to give him runs. But he plays and gets away from us, and he gets the runs off the ball,”

Notably, this is not the first time that Virat Kohli has come up big in an ICC event despite being out of form. Famously, during the 2022 T20 World Cup, the ‘Chase Master’ had made a mockery of Pakistan’s 160-run total when he helped his team to a famous win in Melbourne with an 82-run knock.

Similarly, there were many doubts about Kohli’s recent form and his struggles against leg spin going into this match. However, the veteran batsman showed why he’s at the top of his game in the ODI format as he looked very much like the Kohli of yesteryear, manoeuvring the field for quick singles and taking some chances once he was set.

Pakistan skipper Mohammed Rizwan was also left in awe of Kohli’s ‘hard work’, he said, “I will definitely praise his fitness level and hard work, the way he has done it. Because he is a cricketer and we are also cricketers. We tried very hard to get him out, but he took the game away. He has done a lot of hard work. The whole world said he was out of form – But he did it in this big match,”

Why did Pakistan lose the match, explains Rizwan

Explaining the reason for Pakistan’s loss at the post-match presentation, Rizwan said that it was a collective failure of all three departments of the game for his team. However, the Pakistan skipper did name Abrar Ahmed’s bowling as one of the positives for the hosts.

“As far as the match is concerned, you are disappointed. Because when you lose, you have a difficult day, difficult things come up, and questions come up. But if you look at it all, you can’t say there was a mistake in any department, except if you look at the bowling of Abrar, which was the most positive in this match. We have not made any mistakes. All three departments have made mistakes. That’s why we are losing the match,” Rizwan said after the match.