The knock that announced the arrival of Virat Kohli at the international stage

The scorecard read 275 runs needed to be chased and it was needless to say that the lion’s share of the responsibility was on the shoulders of the two Indian openers, Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar. The duo was in tremendous form throughout the tournament and yet somehow, they found themselves in the face of the biggest test that awaited them.

Sachin and Sehwag were in the 2003 finals too but Australia crushed India mercilessly to lift the trophy. It was probably the last time that Sachin would be a part of a World Cup and it was the last shot of the Little Master to bag the hallowed silverware.

Malinga started his over with a short ball that Sehwag punched in his signature style to the covers but Sri Lanka had their men cordoning off the areas that had brought out the highest number of runs for the Indian opener. A darting Malinga had blood on his mind and followed the first ball with an absolute bullet that barrelled through the defences of Sehwag and clattered onto his pads. Even though he went for a review straight away, he was returning to the pavilion anyway.

The fall of Sehwag was a deafening blow to the Indian aspirations and yet another one was just lurking around the corner. Sachin Tendulkar looked confident and started his innings with a couple of exotic straight drives that would scream class and elegance. But leaving the entire nation silent, Malinga pulled off a back of a length delivery and made it drift away from Tendulkar. Trying to drive it through the covers, he was beaten by the swing and Sangakkara completed the grab to leave India staring at a nosedive into madness.

With India wobbling at 31 for 2 and two of their best batters already back in the hut, a young Virat Kohli walked out to the middle and very few would have expected this youngster to probably play a knock so important that would allow India to steady a rocked ship and go onto lift the trophy from thereon.

Malinga greeted Kohli with a breezy bouncer that would whistle past his ear as a warning of the terror waiting to consume him. As the following couple of deliveries were comfortably dealt with by Kohli, the Sri Lankan paceman brought out a 146.6 clicks bullet that breezed past Kohli without him coming close to the cherry.

With Gambhir at the other end, Virat Kohli started taking everything hurled at him comfortably and after spending some time out in the middle, he brought out his first boundary against Nuwan Kulasekara as a straight delivery at his pads was comfortably glanced down the leg-side, showcasing the phenomenal turnstile wrists that would become the symbol of hope for India in the upcoming days.

Kohli had no trouble from thereon as he would occasionally attack the bowler and at times he would sit deep in the crease and relax, letting the bowlers exhaust their arsenal. Before Dilshan managed to put an end to a heroic knock that the youngster stitched together in the face of enormous pressure, Virat would slam him for a brilliant cut while he also took on Randiv in the preceding over that saw India slowly transferring the pressure back to the Lankans as Gambhir looked to be in fine touch while Kohli would comfortably keep the scoreboard rotating.

Dilshan completed a fine take to snuff out an excellent knock as he plucked out a ripper from mid-air off his own bowling and by the time Kohli was done, he had already amassed 35 runs off 49 balls and India was comfortably stationed at 113 for 3.

35 is just a mediocre score in terms of 50-overs cricket but one needs to understand why Virat Kohli’s anchor in the middle was of significant importance. If you would take a look at chases, when a couple of early wickets tumble, someone has to take charge in the middle to avert the landslide. Now in the tournament, India’s match against South Africa has divulged an ugly side where the entire batting line-up crumbled in a span of just 30 plus runs. Add to that the menacing visages of Malinga and Muralitharan, the latter claiming the all-important scalp of MS Dhoni in the 2007 World Cup for a duck.

It needed someone to deliver the goods in the middle that would help India stay afloat with two big guns yet to come out namely Yuvraj and Dhoni. Yuvraj has been India’s apple of the eye throughout the tournament while their skipper had somewhat of a rough patch that he needed to overcome.

However, someone needed to be a shield in front of the dragon-breaths of Malinga, and who better than Virat Kohli, the man who would carry the entire nation on his shoulders in the forthcoming decade.

Just in case you still relive what happened at the end, Mahendra Singh Dhoni whacked a helicopter strike to seal the deal for India, wiping off an agony of 28 long years, where India tamed giants of the sport and it was Kapil Dev who made the impossible happen.