Unstoppable Virat Kohli continues to excel under pressure

Zee Media Bureau/Suyash Srivastava

Napier: Hailed as `the next big thing in Indian cricket`, stylish Indian right-hander Virat Kohli has made it a habit to break new records with every new series. His ton in the first ODI against New Zealand was again a testament of the fact that he is likely to become one of the greatest batsman the game has ever seen. As youngsters like Shikhar Dhawan still continue to find their rhythm under overseas conditions, Kohli is someone who has played incredible knocks all across the world and not just in India. Even in the first ODI match, Kohli played sensibly with skipper MS Dhoni for a while and then went for his shots in the batting powerplay. At one stage, India were in a precarious position when chasing 292 to win, their top four batsmen were back to the pavilion with just 129 runs on the board. Kohli who is known to play positive cricket, held on to his strokes for a while, as Dhoni was seen talking to him every now and then. But the respite for the Kiwi bowlers didn`t last for long, as Kohli began to play his strokes the moment batting powerplay started. Kohli was batting on 66 off 76 balls, before the start of the 35th over. But from there onwards, he took just 17 more balls to reach his 18th ODI hundred as Brendon McCullum couldn`t stop him from finding gaps every now and then. While we have seen several stupendous knocks from Kohli`s willow in the past, his 123 at Napier will obviously go down as one of his finest knocks under pressure.