Royal Challengers Bengaluru stalwart batter Virat Kohli has special praise in store for his fellow Will Jacks after the Englishman scored his maiden ton in T20 on Sunday at the Narendra Modi Stadium. “Phenomenal” was the word Kohli used to describe Man of the Match Will’s 100* against Gujarat Titans, a knock that carried a plethora of power strokes and emotions of RCB fans. The experienced Englishman provided the much-needed firepower in the batting unit, that Bengaluru have missed on various instances in their failing season. Jacks struck ten towering sixes in his 41-ball hundred, which ranks fifth highest century in the history of the cash-rich league.
“Phenomenal, I mean when he initially came onto bat (on Jacks), he was a bit annoyed that he couldn’t strike the ball as cleanly as he wanted to, but the only conversation between us in the middle was to keep backing, keep committing because we know how explosive he can be. My role completely changed as soon as he got that big over off Mohit, for good, I was glad to be watching the game from the other end. I mean, I thought we could win the game in 19 overs, but to finish it in 15 overs was an outstanding effort,” Kohli said after the game.
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Virat Kohli’s expression says it all
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While the Englishman made fielders chase the ball around the entire ground, Kohli also made it hard for the GT bowlers to find their rhythm.
Even though, Kohli mesmerized the crowd with his refined shots, he was happy to watch Jacks score runs from the non-striker’s end.
“I think it was one of the better T20I hundreds one would ever see, I was just happy to watch it closely from the other end. The wicket was pretty good, I mean towards the later half of their innings, it started settling down and that was probably the reason why both teams wanted to bowl first., That was evident, the temperature went down, it got cooler and as the wicket settled down, the ball started to come nicely onto the bat. I was just having fun out there, hitting boundaries whenever needed. We never allowed the run-rate to go under 10 rpo (runs per over) at any point of the chase and to do that in the end what Jacks did,” Kohli added.
Coming to the match, after putting GT to bat, Sai Sudharsan (86*) and Shahrukh Khan’s (58) blitz powered the hosts to a competitive total of 200/3.
In reply, after skipper Faf du Plessis’s dismissal, Kohli and Jacks rattled GT’s bowling unit with their 166*-run stand to clinch a 9-wicket win for RCB.
