India star Virat Kohli's sublime knock against Pakistan paid rich dividends as he climbed to ninth position in the latest ICC T20I batting rankings. Kohli played a sensational knock of unbeaten 82 off 53 balls against the arch-rivals at the T20 World Cup on Sunday, helping Team India chase down a 160-run target and win the match by four wickets. The 33-year old was also declared player of the match for his match winning performance.
Kohli now has 635 rating poings and is placed ninth in the rankings while Pakistan's wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan, with 849 rating points, currently leads at the top in the list. He is followed by New Zealand's Devon Conway at second and India's Suryakumar Yadav at third position respectively.
Kohli is also ranked seventh in the ICC ODI batting rankings which makes him the only Indian to be in the top 10 of both formats of white-ball cricket.
After struggling with form for quite sometime, Kohli's fate with the bat had taken a positive turn in the Asia Cup 2022 where he had emerged as the second highest run-scorer of the tournament with 276 runs in five matches, averaging an impressive 92.00. The right-handed batter had also notched his maiden T20I century and 71st century in international cricket during the match against Afghanistan in the tournament, thus ending his century drought of more than two years.
{{/usCountry}}After struggling with form for quite sometime, Kohli's fate with the bat had taken a positive turn in the Asia Cup 2022 where he had emerged as the second highest run-scorer of the tournament with 276 runs in five matches, averaging an impressive 92.00. The right-handed batter had also notched his maiden T20I century and 71st century in international cricket during the match against Afghanistan in the tournament, thus ending his century drought of more than two years.
{{/usCountry}}In T20Is, Kohli has thus far hit 567 runs at a stunning average of 51.54 in 15 matches in 2022. He is a vital cog in the middle order for the Men in Blue and the team's performance in the T20 World Cup will revolve a lot around how he performs. India will return for the second match of their tournament campaign against Netherlands on October 27.