Team India defeated arch-rivals Pakistan by four wickets on Sunday. It was a thrilling encounter that kept everyone glued to their seats. There was so much involvement that many other day-to-day activities also took a backseat. Much of the credit must be given to Virat Kohli and his terrific performance. On that note, here, we take a look at an interesting stat that proves the dominance of Virat Kohli when he was batting against Pakistan.
Virat Kohli was at his best against Pakistan
With a target of 160, India was the favourite to win the game. However, the men in blue were wary of the challenge by Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah. Consequently, India lost KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav early. India was reduced to 31-4 and it required a career-best performance from someone to pull India out of the hole.
Virat Kohli did not have a great start to his knock. At one point, the former Indian skipper was 12 of 21 deliveries. However, with the aid of Hardik Pandya, he arrived to form. He got a few big hits but with the good bowling of Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah, India was in trouble again. That is when Virat Kohli was at his best. He hit two sixes of Rauf and then hit one of Mohammad Nawaz in the final over. This coupled with his excellent running took India across the line.
The entire nation was focused on the game
It is the season of Diwali in India. Hence, shopping will be a major happening during the festival. Moreover, it was a Sunday, and hence, there was a lot of shopping done on October 23rd.
However, when the game started, the shopping through UPI came down. This was expected. That said, the fall in numbers when India was batting came out of the blue. Especially when Virat was at the crease, in the end, UPI shopping fell by close to 20%. There were close to 18M viewers on Hotstar when Virat was wielding his willow. Of course, there would have been many more in front of the TV. This shows the magnitude of Virat’s performance on Sunday.
Online shopping through UPI went downhill when King Kohli was dominating against Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/gIQ8tJFcoS
Advertisement— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) October 24, 2022
Highest peak viewership on Hotstar in last 3 tournaments:-
T20 WC 2021 – 13M (Kohli batting)
In Asia Cup 2022 – 13M (Kohli batting).
In T20 WC 2022 – 18M (Kohli batting).AdvertisementVirat Kohli – The Face of World Cricket for a reason.!!
— CricketMAN2 (@ImTanujSingh) October 23, 2022
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