Virat Kohli on Sunday showcased another chasing masterclass in Royal Challengers Bangalore‘s (RCB) IPL 2023 season opener against five-time champions Mumbai Indians. Kohli’s thundering knock of 82* at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium marked a perfect homecoming for RCB who scripted an emphatic eight-wicket win against MI. Following the knock, former England captain Michael Vaughan put out a tweet hailing Kohli as the “best in the world”, but the ex-RCB captain’s favourite cricketer gave a fitting response to the former.
In response to the target of 172 runs at home, RCB got off to a stunning start with openers Kohli and Faf du Plessis stitching a record 148-run stand with either batters getting to their half-century knocks. Skipper Faf was dismissed in the fag end of the chase, but Kohli wrapped up the game in style, finishing off with a six as RCB won with 22 balls to spare.
Kohli scored an unbeaten 82 off 49 in the match, lacing six boundaries and five sixes and it was his 50th half-century plus knock in IPL history, making him the only Indian batter to the feat and second overall after David Warner.
After the match, Vaughan was left in complete awe of Kohli as he hailed both the batter and RCB. He tweeted: “At his best he is still the best player in the world to watch .. @imVkohli makes batting look so easy .. @RCBTweets look dangerous !!! #IPL2023.”
On Monday, in response to Vaughan’s words, Kohli’s favourite cricketer, Herschelle Gibbs, the former South Africa cricketer, put out a fitting tweet saying, “Even when he’s not at his best, there’s still nobody better currently than Virat.”
Back in his ICC U-19 World Cup appearance, in 2008, a video of Kohli was shown on the first day of India’s match. Each of the players had to introduce themselves and say the name of their favourite cricketer. And although later in his cricketing career he had admitted that he idolised Sachin Tendulkar, during the U-19 World Cup video, Kohli had said that his favourite cricketer was Gibbs.
