Star India batter Virat Kohli’s fandom transcends boundaries as a fan was seen flaunting his jersey during a Champions One Day Cup match in Pakistan. The incident took place during Match 4 of the tournament between Markhors, led by Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam’s team Stallions, in Faislabad.
During the first innings of the match, Markhors’ batters Salman Agha and Iftikhar Ahmed were in the middle during the 29th over bowled by Mehran Mumtaz. On the third delivery, Salman drove Mehran down the ground for a boundary. As soon as the ball hit the boundary ropes, the camera panned towards the crowd where a fan was seen holding the jersey of Virat Kohli.
Watch the video here:
In the past as well, several Pakistan fans have openly accepted their admiration for Kohli who has played several match-winning knocks against them. Kohli has scored 678 runs in ODIs against Pakistan at an average of 52.15 and a strike rate of 100.29 registering three centuries and two half centuries. In T20Is, he has scored 492 runs from 11 innings at a staggering average of 70.28 and a strike rate of 123.92 with five fifties.
The best innings of Kohli’s T20I career also came against Pakistan when he scored a phenomenal 82* (53) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground during the T20 World Cup 2022. His knock helped India chase down 160 after being 31/4 at one stage.
Pakistan fans compare Babar and Kohli
Pakistan fans have often compared their star batter Babar Azam with Kohli who’s broken a couple of records of Kohli in the shortest format. The former Pakistan captain became the fastest to score 1000 runs in T20Is in 26 innings bettering Kohli’s record of 27 innings.
He also spent a whopping 1070 days as the world number one ranked batter in T20Is surpassing Kohli’s reign of 1013 days. Meanwhile, Babar hasn’t been in the best of forms in international cricket as he hasn’t scored a half-century in Test cricket in the last 16 innings. However, he’s been scoring runs for Stallions in the ongoing Champions One Day cup having knocks of 76 (79) and 45 (45) so far.
He scored five consecutive boundaries against Markhors’ Shahnawaz Dahani albeit in a losing cause as Rizwan’s stallions won by 126 runs.
