The Indian cricket team’s juggernaut has been unstoppable at the Cricket World Cup. With 10 straight wins in the ODI Cricket World Cup 2023, the Rohit Sharma-led Indian cricket team has entered the final of the mega event as the only unbeaten team. In the 10 matches that they won, Afghanistan was also one of their opponents. The Indian cricket team’s match against Afghanistan had a sub-plot with Virat Kohli facing off with Naveen Ul Haq for the first time after their spat in the Indian Premier League 2023.
Virat Kohli, while playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore, had a heated argument with Naveen Ul Haq, playing for Lucknow Super Giants, during an IPL 2023 match. So, their match-up was a closely watched affair. In fact, Naveen was often taunted by ‘Kohli’ chants in the stadiums. However, the two made peace during the match.
“He said, ‘let’s finish it?’, I said, ‘Yes, let’s finish it’ so we we laughed about it, we hugged and we moved on. He said, ‘Now after this, you won’t hear my name’ or something he said [and that], ‘You’ll only get support from the crowd’. I said yeah (smiles),” Naveen said in a video shared by his IPL team Lucknow Super Giants.
“I will stand for my teammate. That’s why we are a team.”
Naveen Ul Haq also commented that the support that the Afghanistan cricket team received in India made them fell like they were playing at home.
“We’ve got support from, I think, every game. In just that one game we played against India in Delhi we didn’t get any support (smiles). [Apart from that], we got a home kind of a feeling in every game,” he said.
India star batter Virat Kohli slammed his 50th ODI century on Wednesday to script a new all-time record. During the Cricket World Cup 2023 semi-final clash against New Zealand at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, the right-handed batter scored a century to achieve the milestone. With it, Kohli also surpassed Sachin Tendulkar‘s previous world record of 49 ODI centuries. After crossing the 100-run mark, Kohli bowed down to Tendulkar, who was sitting in the stands. Tendulkar too acknowledged Kohli’s gesture as he clapped and hailed the former for achieving the feat.
Former India cricketer Mohammad Kaif was mighty impressed with Kohli’s gesture towards Tendulkar after the 50th ODI ton.
“Look after the 2011 World Cup Virat carried his guru Sachin Tendulkar on his shoulders saying, Sachin’s carried the burden of the nation for 21 years, and it’s now our time to do the same for him. After winning that World Cup is where his journey started. And now on that very same ground, he’s broken Sachin’s record in front of Sachin himself, and after breaking the record Virat also acknowledged Sachin and even went down on his knees to pay respects to the his hero and the master of the game. This shows the nature and character of Virat Kohli,” Kaif told Star Sports.
