The star batter made the decision to score all the remaining runs on his own, and he had good help from KL Rahul, who repeatedly stopped him from getting a single. In India’s fourth match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 on Thursday, October 19, star batsman Virat Kohli scored his 48th ODI century and assisted India in a seven-wicket victory. While Kohli was batting on 73* (77) after 38 overs and India needed just 28 runs to win, attaining the milestone was a challenge for the king of the chase.
KL Rahul discussed the chat between the two of them in the middle and said that Kohli requested him to play singles so that no one would assume that he was playing for his milestone.
However, the wicketkeeper batsman gave him support to hit the milestone because India was easily dominating the match.
Virat Kohli requested a single, but I refused because he claimed it would look awful if I didn’t take it and people would think I was playing for a personal milestone. KL Rahul admitted as much to Star Sports in a post-game interview. “But I said we are comfortably winning, you complete your century,” he said.
While still unbeaten at 103 off 97 balls after smacking six fours and four sixes, Kohli went on to finish his hundred with a six against Nasum Ahmed. India won the competition for the fourth time in a row thanks to his performance as they completed the 257-run mark in 41.3 overs.
Player of the Match was rightfully given to the former India captain after his spectacular hundred. The ace batsman needs one more century to tie Sachin Tendulkar‘s record for the most hundreds in ODIs (49), which he currently holds.
The day before, Bangladesh‘s acting captain Najmul Hossain Shanto chose to bat first after winning the toss. They got off to a wonderful start when Tanzid Hasan and Litton Das shared 93 runs for the first wicket off 88 balls after Tanzid scored 51 off 43 and Litton scored 66 off 82.
With the ball, India’s Ravindra Jadeja shone.
Nevertheless, when they were dismissed, no other batsman was able to play a significant innings, and Bangladesh could only amass 256/8 in their allotted 50 overs. The best bowler for India was Ravindra Jadeja, who had scores of 2/38 in 10 overs. Jasprit Bumrah had stats of 2/41, and Mohammad Siraj had figures of 2/60.