First let's talk about chasing and Indian cricket. If you remember the 90s, you would remember all the middle order wobbles of our team and our fantastic ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Those days India would always wish they had a finisher like Michael Bevan in their ranks. He batted in the middle order then, assessed situations brilliantly while chasing, ran like a hare and pulled out the big shots from his repertoire only when needed.
After a decade or so, India did go on to have someone similar to him, in-fact better than him. Mahendra Singh Dhoni with his ice cool temperament and excellent leadership qualities wrote new chapters everyday at chasing targets. Similar to Bevan, Dhoni batted in the middle order and finished games on a consistent basis.
But what separated Dhoni from Bevan was the former’s ability to hit big sixes in pressure cooker situations.
Later under Dhoni’s captaincy a Delhi boy, who initially came across as cocky and brash, blossomed and has gone on to become India’s greatest cricketer post the Tendulkar era.
Virat Kohli has always enjoyed chasing and some of his stupendous knocks in the 50 over format bear testimony to that and hence, it comes as no surprise that he has repeated those exploits in the shortest format of the game as well.
T20 cricket has grown a great deal since it was first introduced in England in 2003 and in 13 years, it has seen many exceptional performances by some star players, both domestically and internationally. Kohli already has a mind-boggling number of T20 International fifties (15 and counting). He was in tremendous form in the last T20 world cup in 2014 and seemed to have continued from where he left off in Bangladesh, two years back.
What separates Kohli from the likes of Bevan and Dhoni is that he is a top order batsman who is a FINISHER. A no. 3 batsman who finishes games regularly! How many cricketers can do that? In T20s, his already preposterous average reaches a godly 123 when India are set a target. The key here is the number of times he stays not out till the end while taking his team through to the finishing line.
