Virat Kohli’s Poor Show Against Ireland Prompts Intriguing ‘Pakistan Challenge’ From Sunil Gavaskar

The talismanic Virat Kohli had a forgettable outing against Ireland in India’s T20 World Cup 2024 opener on Wednesday. On a tricky pitch that offered varied bounce to pacers, Kohli could only score 1 run from 5 balls, showcasing a rare poor show in the tournament’s history, having scored at an average of 81.5 before the match. However, as Kohli failed to unleash his carnage on the Ireland team, legendary India batter Sunil Gavaskar threw ‘Pakistan challenge’ at the opening batter.

Gavaskar remains unfazed by Kohli’s rare failure with the bat, saying a great batter like him would look to score double the runs against Pakistan, make up for the lost opportunity against Ireland.

“The way I look at it is…great players like Steve Smith, Virat Kohli, Babar Azam and Joe Root. They fail in one match; they wanna make up for it in the next match. They want to score double the runs. So whatever runs he might not have gotten (against Ireland), you know, he wants to score double the runs. And who better to score double the runs than against Pakistan,” Gavaskar said on Star Sports after India’s win over Ireland.

With the victory against Ireland, India have now registered the most successive wins against a single opponent in T20 cricket.

A half-century by skipper Rohit Sharma, fine finishing by Rishabh Pant and scorching spells by Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah were the highlights as India started their ICC T20 World Cup campaign on a winning note by thrashing Ireland by eight wickets.

The wicketkeeper-batter Pant’s bat produced the winning shot in the end, which came on the second ball of the 13th over.

With this victory, India earned their eighth win against the Ireland side in the T20Is. They also have eight wins against Bangladesh from 2009 to 2018.

Australia (2013-2017), Sri Lanka (2016-2017), and West Indies (2018-2019) are the other opponents against whom the Men in Blie have the most wins. The Rohit Shaema-led side has defeated these teams seven times each so far in the history of the sport.

With ANI inputs