Virat Kohli has established himself as one of the greatest batters of all time through his extraordinary knocks, before before 2020, and an efficient fielder as well. However, it is not often that one gets to see the former India captain roll his arms over.
Fans got to see that when Kohli bowled for the first time in nearly six years during India's match against Hong Kong in the Asia Cup 2022. It was the first time since 2020, when he had bowled one over in a Test match against New Zealand, that he bowled in international cricket and the first time since March 2016 that he had bowled in a T20I match.
Interestingly Kohli used to be quite a regular part-time bowler for India and his Indian Premier League (IPL) Royal Challengers Bangalore till 2012. His childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma has said that Albie Morkel's sensational assault in an over that Kohli bowled while playing for Chennai Super Kings may have had an effect on him picking up the ball less regularly in latter years.
"Virat was always confident as a bowler. Morkel did dent his confidence a bit in the past (laughs) but he was always keen to take the ball and used to say - 'give me the ball, I will pick wickets.' So it is great to see him bowling again," said Sharma on India News Sports.
CSK were chasing a mammoth target of 206 and were 163/4 when Kohli came in to bowl the 19th over. Morkel ended up smashing 28 runs in that over, hitting two fours and three sixes, which ended up being the turning point of the match. They then smashed 17 runs off the final over to actually win the match.
There was no such pyrotechnics when Kohli had bowled against Hong Kong, with just six runs being scored from the singular over. Kohli also scored a useful 59 off 44 balls in a 98-run stand with Suryakumar Yadav that came in just 42 balls and put the game beyond Hong Kong's reach.