Virat Kohli was happy to win the match with an unbeaten century-the 51st of his career, in a contest India won by six wickets over Pakistan on Sunday at the Dubai International Stadium that all but knocked the hosts out of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
Kohli’s unbeaten 100 helped the star Indian batter to become only the third man to collect 14,000 runs in ODI history.
“It was a beautiful innings for me and as you said a remarkable win for the entire team. I played the kind of innings I wanted to. Contributing in a winning cause in an important game is always exciting, and yeah it was crucial that we pushed hard for this win to qualify,” said Kohli in a video posted by ICC on social media.
“One thing that I’ve always thought of batting at three is to minimise risk and make sure that I put my team in a winning position and if you have a chance to finish off the game in a chase, obviously that’s much better and I always preferred that kind of situation,” he added.
Kohli completed his century when Khushdil Shah on what turned out to be the last ball of the game, pushed a boundary. Taking off his helmet, Kohli smiled as he raised his bat to a standing ovation from the crowd chanting his name.
In all these years my role has not changed. Whatever comes my way because of the needs of the game, I stick to my focal point and just do that. The atmosphere is always a bit different when you play against Pakistan, especially here because you have an equal number of fans from both nations. And yeah, it was an amazing day for us as a team and for me personally,” Kohli stated.
He went into the match with an aggregate of 13,985 runs from 298 ODIs and became the 14th man to cross the 14,000 run-mark off his beautifully executed cover drive against aspiring quick Haris Rauf.
On the topic of the cover drive, Kohli said: “It’s a catch 22. I mean it’s been a kind of something I seldom did over the years but I have got a lot of runs with that particular shot. I think today was just about backing my shots and I think the first couple of boundaries I got were cover drives on the rise so I really had to just let it go a little bit and take a bit of risk and follow through with my shots because when I hit those kind of shots then I feel in control when I bat out there.”
