Two Years Later After Leading India At Eden Gardens, Virat Kohli Eyes Encore In Kolkata
Kohli has memories of leading India at the Eden Gardens in an ODI.
It's indeed a strange coincidence but it is true: The last time Eden Gardens hosted an ODI, more than two years ago, the man who was in charge of the Men in Blue will once again be in the hot seat on Sunday.
AP
Virat Kohli had led India to a resounding 153-run victory over Sri Lanka in November 2014, with Rohit Sharma lighting up the night sky with an incandescent 264. Kohli, captaining the side in place of the rested MS Dhoni, ended up whitewashing Sri Lanka in the five-match series.
Kohli, now India's full-time leader in all formats, having already given India an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series, will be looking to do an encore against England by winning the last game at Eden Gardens.
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The Indian captain, who reckons his team has performed at 75 percent of its optimum capacity in the first two ODIs, warned England after the Cuttack match on Thursday that Eden Gardens may just be the place where his fledgling team ups the ante further. Significantly, the Kolkata match will be India's last ODI before the Champions Trophy in June.
Apart from Kohli, who missed out on the run feast on Thursday, expectations will be high from Yuvraj Singh, considered to be Sourav Ganguly's protege, and Dhoni, who qualifies as Kolkata's son-in-law after marrying Sakshi, whose family is based in the city.
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Kohli, of course, has not done too badly at Eden. He is one of the 13 players, including five Indians, to have hit a century here. More significantly, the first of his 27 centuries in ODIs had come here seven winters ago. It was against Sri Lanka that Kohli (107) had shared a 224-run partnership with Gautam Gambhir to see India home.
And the last time he batted in an ODI here, he was mostly reduced to a spectator by Rohit in their 202-run stand against the same opposition in 2014. Kohli's 66 was completely overshadowed by Rohit's world-record tally of 264. That will surely be one of Kohli's long-term targets as he looks to scale new peaks as a batsman.
