Shamik Chakrabarty in Dubai
Whenever Virat Kohli comes out to bat, he carries a cycle of hope for his fans. Glenn Phillips stuck a fork in it and played spoilsport. “Mr Phillips, people were there to watch Mr Kohli bat, not you taking a stunner,” the good doctor (WG Grace) probably would have said if he were alive. Flippancy aside, in his 300th ODI, the Indian superstar fell prey to a glorious piece of cricket.
Shubman Gill took the review as an afterthought. It was unnecessary. Matt Henry made one move late off the deck and beat the inside edge. The ball thudded onto the pad and Gill looked stone-dead leg before wicket. DRS confirmed it. India lost their most in-form batsman early, but the crowd celebrated it. Kohli walked out to bat and a loud cheer greeted him.
In terms of build-up, the India versus New Zealand Champions Trophy game was a damp squib. Those who cared to turn up at Dubai International Stadium seemingly did that with lazy reluctance. Gradually, though, people started to walk through the turnstiles and by the time Kohli came down off the pavilion stairs, more than 10,000 spectators were there in the stands. In a dead rubber, the milestone man was the biggest attraction.
Kohli got off the mark with a four – a fuller delivery from Henry outside off that was dragged to the mid-on boundary. The pitch wasn’t allowing free-flowing batting and the former India captain was ready to bide his time. Rohit Sharma’s dismissal, who mistimed a pull, attested the sluggishness of the surface. Kohli himself was a tad lucky, when a leading edge narrowly eluded the backward point fielder.
Henry’s next ball had ‘hit-me’ written all over it – short and wide, and Kohli smashed it to the right of Phillips. It was going for a four, but Phillips can do the impossible in the field. He dived, stretched his right hand and took a blinder, while almost being parallel to the ground. The athleticism would have made any top-class goalkeeper proud. Apologies Manchester United fans, it was probably beyond Andre Onana’s wildest dreams.
Kohli stared in disbelief before trudging off. Fans were disappointed, but they had to stand and applaud.
On the eve of the match, Phillips was asked in jest if he was using a glue stick to take those stunning catches. The player spoke about the hard work. “I wish I could say that I have got a special little glue tag that I use, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. If anything, my palms are sweatier than anything else. It comes down to a lot of hard work and doing the basics as much as I can and then sometimes luck just plays a good part in it,” he had said at the pre-match presser.
Kohli scoring a hundred in his 300th ODI would have been a fairy tale. He got out for 11 instead. Phillips gatecrashed the party. Everyone revelled in its sublimity.