Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has praised Virat Kohli for changing the parameters based on which batters were judged in the shortest format of cricket. He also added that no player has and will likely dominate all three formats like Kohli as well. However, Kohli was the Player of the Match in India’s seven-run win in the 2024 T20 World Cup final against South Africa in Barbados on Saturday, June 29. Following the win, he announced his retirement from T20Is after his responsible 59-ball 76 helped the team win their second T20 World Cup trophy as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra said, “What’s the legacy he is leaving behind? He is leaving a lot. As you keep moving forward, very few players will play all three formats in this fashion and boss all of them. So Virat Kohli will definitely be missed. Legacy is unparalleled and unmatched.
“Virat Kohli redefined T20 cricket. Some players are once-in-a-generation, once-in-a-lifetime, and that’s Virat Kohli. He has changed our understanding matrix because T20 changed everyone’s matrix and he changed T20’s matrix. We had kept 30s and 50s as milestones, no one used to keep 50s and 100s. However, he said 50s and 100s should be kept because he scores centuries as well, and plenty of them, although he has only one century in T20Is, which came against Afghanistan. He is that kind of a player,” he further added.
He also said that Virat Kohli forced the batting measures to be changed in the T20 format as well. Kohli smashed 4,188 runs which came at an average of 48.69 and a strike rate of 137.04 in 117 T20I innings. He hit a century and 38 fifties, with an unbeaten 122 against Afghanistan in the 2022 Asia Cup being his top score as well. He also said that Virat Kohli has delivered as per every T20 batting standard as well.
“It’s said it’s a game of players who hit sixes easily, that players who bludgeon the ball become superstars. He said you can see the runs, average or strike rate. This player has lived up to every parameter. The one thing that makes him most special is cometh the hour, cometh the man. The bigger the stage, the more he elevates his game. I remember the Australia game in Mohali, the semi-final against the West Indies, the 2014 final where he stood at one end, didn’t get the strike or else he would have won that as well, and this match (2024 final) where India were 30/3,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
