Virat Kohli's swashbuckling innings of 133 not out - which helped India chase down a target of 321 against Sri Lanka in the CB series at Hobart - was adjudged as the best ODI batting performance of 2012.
Apart from senior cricket writers, ESPN Cricinfo's jury included former cricketers Rahul Dravid, Geoffrey Boycott, Ian Chappell and Rameez Raja to decide the winners.
Kohli's 133 came in just 86 balls and consisted of 16 fours and two sixes, culminating in the quickest chase of a 300-plus total in ODI history.
In this Sunday, March 10, 2013 photo, budding Indian players practice at a soccer coaching camp in Kolkata, India. When sports lovers in India talk about a Premier League igniting their passion, they re usually not referring to the English football competition. For now, football players in India are considered the poor cousins of glamorous cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli, who have the marketability to sell anything from real estate projects to motor bikes or cola.
New Delhi: Virat Kohli's childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma is a happy man as the effort that his favourite student Virat Kohli put in at the nets prior to the Australia series has worked wonders for the player.
I had a specific strategy in mind for Virat so that he could counter the Australian quick bowlers. Since, it is very difficult to find quicks, who can consistently hit 140 kmph at the nets, I decided to shorten the length of the pitch from 22 yards to 20 yards, Sharma told PTI today.
It feels like Virat Kohli has been around a while. His is a familiar face in India colours and so it takes a moment to remember that he is still only 24 and the familiarity comes from one-day cricket. In Test terms, Virat is still very much a newbie. The first Test against Australia will be just his 15th five-day game. He made his ODI debut in 2008, but his Test debut only came in 2011.
And while he has become a one-day superstar - averaging 49.43 from 98 matches with 13 hundreds - he has yet to replicate that form in Tests. His overall average is 38.73, which is decent, but the splits are heavily skewed towards home conditions. In India he averages 51.50, while away (West Indies/Australia) he averages just 28.92 (admittedly, it is a small sample size).
Mohali: India's star batsman Virat Kohli today said that his prolonged form slump was annoying, but staying calm and patient helped him overcome it.
Kohli marked his return to form with an unbeaten 77 in the last one-dayer in Ranchi against England after a string of low scores which had become a matter of concern for the team. I wasn't feeling the same as others might have about my form, to be honest. No one can keep scoring consistently for a period of 16 months. It's always a balance in international cricket. There will be a phase when you don't score in four-five games, Kohli said at the pre-match press conference ahead of the fourth ODI tomorrow.
It was a bit annoying for me as I was not getting out making too many mistakes. I got a few good balls in the last series and made a few mistakes in this series. But, I was pretty calm at that point of time. You just got to be composed. You just know that it is going to happen at some point or the other (return to form), he said.
India are leading the five-match ODI series against England 2-1 and will look to settle the issue by taking an unassailable lead at the PCA stadium here tomorrow. The right-hander pointed out that working hard regularly in the nets and staying calm and patient was the only mantra which had helped him tide over the lean phase.
Virat Kohli likes to talk and for that he has attracted the displeasure of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), says a report in the Mumbai daily Mid-Day.
The BCCI issues a gag order which prevents players from speaking to the media during a tournament or a series. The only interaction between players and the media is during the official press conferences.
However, Kohli - who made an unbeaten 77 at Ranchi - spoke to The Telegraph at length in an interview published on January 19 - the day India beat England by seven wickets in the third ODI at Ranchi to take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series.
