The animated celebration including a shush towards the Gujarat dressing room from Virat Kohli said it all.
Having been rather subdued for the majority of his two outings in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, as the contest between Delhi and Gujarat became too close to call on a two-paced pitch, the uber competitiveness in him came to the forefront. The run-out of Gujarat’s No.9 Amit Desai after a series of abysmal and comical fielding errors made Kohli bellow. It resounded at the Centre of Excellence facility.
And seven runs later as he pouched Ravi Bishnoi’s catch, a nervy seven-run win was sealed by Delhi to make it two wins out of two.
On a pitch where no team was able to seize control, and batsmen except for Rishabh Pant struggled, Kohli’s 61-ball 77 deserved a separate pedestal for its class.
He deservedly took home the Man of the Match award too, which carries prize money of Rs 10,000. For Delhi, it meant a lot more. Like in the opening round, Kohli walked in early, this time it was IPL star Priyansh Arya who departed early. Gujarat came prepared for Kohli, who had shown he meant business in the first game against Andhra.
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With the ball seaming around, wicketkeeper Urvil Patel stood up to the stumps to seamers Arsan Nagwaswalla and Chintan Gaja. But Kohli didn’t worry. He got going by lofting Gaja over mid-on and in his next over sent the ball over the boundary ropes in the same area. For a batsman, who was compact at the start right through his ODI career, since the South Africa series a different Kohli has emerged — one who prefers to slip into top gear and maximise the power play restrictions. On Friday off the first 16 deliveries he faced, Kohli had 6 boundaries and a six.
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Although Gaja did trouble him a couple of times with sharp in-dippers, thanks to Kohli’s compact defence, he had nothing to worry about. So the boundaries flowed freely on either side of the wicket. Unlike his previous outing against Andhra where he was living dangerously at times, here he was in total control. There were lofted drives and a couple of flicks, with his wrists coming into play. While Kohli effortlessly made runs, at the other end it was a real struggle for the likes of Arpit Rana and Nitish Rana. The dominance of Kohli was such that he brought up his fifty from 29 balls with 10 boundaries and a six.
Delhi skipper Rishabh Pant with Virat Kohli during the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025-26 second round match against Gujarat. (PHOTO: PTI)
As Delhi lost wickets and the spinners came on, Kohli would slow down with left-arm spinner Vishal Jayswal posing a few questions. The spinner would eventually succeed, by getting Kohli stumped. From there on, Delhi got to 254/9 thanks to Pant.
Batting at No.5, Pant couldn’t find the fluency like Kohli, but knew how to get the job done on the surface. He quickly figured the key to make runs here would be to stay as long as possible. But, running out of partners at the other end, Pant would take his own calculative risks. With Bishnoi, Desai and Jayswal offering favourable match-ups, he would score 61 off his 70 off the spinners in a knock that included eight boundaries and two sixes. Like Kohli’s, this was an innings of the highest calibre, where he didn’t do anything silly.
With 255 to defend, Delhi didn’t get the early wickets as their pace pack that included Ishant Sharma, Navdeep Saini, Simarjeet Singh and Prince Yadav were unlucky. There were two dropped catches and sloppy fielding efforts to overcome but they bowled their hearts out. They had to wait till the 12th over for the first break-through (Urvil Patel) and another 12 more to remove Aarya Desai as Gujarat were 121/2 in 25 overs and cruising to the target. The script would change from there on. Saini, Ishant and Rana would make inroads in Gujarat’s middle-order with three timely strikes that reduced them to 145/5. And more importantly in those 10 overs, they gave away only 20 runs. Saurav Chauhan, then in the company of Jayswal, dragged Gujarat back into the game with a 69-run stand off 44 deliveries, where they took apart Delhi’s attack. But when Simarjeet got Chauhan to nick one to Pant, Delhi got their noses in front again as Jayswal also followed soon. After a cat-and-mouse contest involving the tail-enders, Kohli’s catch sealed the contest.
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Brief Scores: Delhi 254/9 in 50 ovs (Kohli 77, Pant 70; Jayswal 4/42) beat Gujarat 247 all out in 47.4 ovs (Aarya 57, Saurav 49; Prince 3/37) by seven runs.
