Virat Kohli played yet another Captain’s knock to take his side to a victory by six wickets in the first match that was played against Zimbabwe at Harare on Wednesday. He smashed 115 runs, which brought the quickest 15th ODI hundred by any player. It was his just his 106 ODI match, but the maturity he showed, it looked as if he has come off ages. Kohli has been handed over the captaincy after MS Dhoni decided to take a break from this less intense tour.
He was quoted by The Hindu saying, "It's always good to kick off a tour with a win and personally I was happy with the way I played. The ball was moving around a bit early on and it was all about percentage cricket, rotating the strike and then playing your shots at the end," Kohli, man-of-the-match.”
"Our bowlers did a very good job up front. The new ball was doing quite a bit in the morning and with two new balls you can't count any team out," he said.
Captain Kohli also appreciated the efforts of Ambati Rayudu who batted with great concentration and remained unbeaten on 63. Apart from that Rayudu and Kohli did a big partnership of 159 runs for the third wicket.
"Congratulations to Ambati Rayudu, he's got an India call-up after a long time and he's grabbed his opportunity very well," he said, according to a report in Deccan Chronicle.
Rayudu has been knocking the door of Indian Team from quite a sometime and looked quite with the half-century that he scored on his debut.
Rayudu was quoted by Hindustan Times saying, "It's been a long wait for me. When I came to know about my debut, I couldn't sleep last night. I was totally blank. My only aim today was to go out there and enjoy myself. I decided that I will play each ball on its merit. It was great to play with Virat who is the best batsman in ODI cricket. My job was to play alongside him.”
Meanwhile, the reports in DNA quoted the losing skipper Brendon Taylor saying, "First hour was vital, we didn't lose any wickets but we could have been a bit more proactive. Against a quality side like India we needed 270 on the board.”
Taylor was happy that opener Skiandar Raza played a gem of an innings when ball was doing quite a bit. Raza scored 82 and Chigumbura smashed 43 runs. in the bowling department, it was the off-spinner Prosper Utseya, who took two of the four Indian wickets that fell.
"Sikandar Raza played very well, showing good composure despite having hardly played any games. Prosper Utseya was good with the ball and hopefully next time we can come out and express ourselves a little better," Taylor said.