Virat Kohli or Suryakumar Yadav? Who was the protagonist against the Netherlands? Gautam Gambhir answers

In the recently concluded game between India and the Netherlands, the 2007 winners were in the driver’s seat for most parts. Apart from the powerplay overs while batting, the team dominated the European side on a slow wicket at the Sydney Cricket Ground. First up, skipper Rohit Sharma scored 53 off 39 balls including four fours and two sixes. At that point, Virat Kohli was going almost run a ball.

However, after the former’s wicket and Surykumar Yadav came to the crease, Kohli started hitting boundaries. On the other hand, Yadav showed that he was playing on a different wicket from what the likes of Kohli and Sharma were playing. Yadav scored an unbeaten 51 off 25 balls and finished India’s innings ala MS Dhoni’s style. The Mumbaikar hit a six to bring up his fifty and finish the innings.

On the other hand, Kohli scored an unbeaten 62 off 44 balls. After the Men In Blue’s innings, the 2007 winner, Gautam Gambhir opined on both players’ innings. He said that Yadav was the real hero in the batting as he took the pressure off Kohli. “Real hero is Suryakumar Yadav and not Virat Kohli as he took pressure off him”, said Gambhir post the India innings.

India registers a mammoth victory against the Dutch

Batting first, the former champions amassed 179/2 at the end of the innings. It was always an above-par total for the Dutch as the wicket slowed up after South Africa vs Bangladesh game early in the day. Meanwhile, coming back to the India-Netherlands game, the Orange Army was never in the chase from the beginning.

In the powerplay, Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled two maiden overs and took the wicket of Vikramjit Singh. He also took another wicket to finish 3-2-9-2. Axar Patel, who had a rough game against Pakistan, took two wickets for 18 runs in four overs. Talking about the result, India won the game by 56 runs. This win has boosted their Net Run Rate (NRR) as it is currently (+1.425).