TIL Desk Sports/ Virat Kohli will be facing the toughest battle of his nascent ODI captaincy career when defending champions India take on South Africa in a do-or-die virtual ‘quarter-final’ of the ICC Champions Trophy, here tomorrow.
Their confidence shaken after Sri Lanka effortlessly out-batted them in a high-scoring encounter, the Indian team and Kohli in particular will be keen to ensure that South Africa are continued to be known as “chokers”. Call it irony, if India lose the game, it will be defending champions making an exit even before the semi-final. If the Proteas lose, then the current No.1 ranked ODI side would be ousted before the last four stage.
A defeat will have the skeptics blaming the speculated off-the-field issues for the a performance. In such a backdrop, Kohli will be under huge pressure with margin of error being next to nil. For AB de Villiers, it will be an opportunity to prove that self-imposed exile from five-day game has not affected his limited overs skills.
With three quality left-handers — Quinton de Kock, JP Duminy and David Miller — in the South African line-up, Kohli can’t afford to keep Ravichandran Ashwin in cold storage.
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