Shane Warne was so impressed that he tweeted to Sachin Tendulkar: "Reminded me of one of your many special innings buddy!"
Virat Kohli is at the peak of his career and his knock of 82* against Australia on Sunday was a reminder of this. Everyone present here was left dazed with excitement and amazement after he turned the match around in the 18th and 19th overs of the Indian run-chase.
Shane Warne was so impressed that he tweeted to Sachin Tendulkar: "Reminded me of one of your many special innings buddy!"
It was a reminder of the way Tendulkar won so many matches for India in ODIs. Tendulkar played only one T20I for India, way back in 2006, and was never keen about playing T20s at the international level. Thus, one will never find out how he would have batted in T20 international cricket.
However, it is difficult to imagine Tendulkar batting better than how Kohli did against Australia to seal India's semifinal berth.
Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, another great finisher, was left gushing praises for Kohli's brilliant innings.
"I think it was an incredible innings," Dhoni said. "The fact is this wasn't an easy wicket to bat on. Back-of-length deliveries were difficult to get away, especially against the spinners. The good thing was I don't think they bowled too many spinners. Also, in between, he was hampered when he had the partnership with Yuvraj and they couldn't convert those one-and-a-half runs to twos. Maybe because of that, to some extent, we had to chase maybe one run per over more than what we would have liked.
The Indian captain said it was Kohli's shot selection and execution of it that made stood out.
"It was tremendous batting effort from him, superb batting. Especially the areas where you want to score runs, where you want to play big shots. I think more often than not, it is about selection of shots and execution of shots. I feel overall, Virat was very good not just with his strokeplay but also in the running between the wickets. You take minimum risk if you can run fast," Dhoni said.
Dhoni and Kohli ran runs very, very fast. "He needs to pay me for running all his runs," Dhoni joked.
There was no such laughing for Australians, who were at the receiving end of a Kohli special. Australia captain Steve Smith had no other option but to salute an absolute masterclass innings from his contemporary.
"It was a pretty serious innings on a wicket which was tough to bat on," Smith said after the six-wicket defeat. "I thought we were in a good position with India needing two runs a ball at one stage. It just took an unbelievable innings under pressure by Virat Kohli to get his team over the line. It looked whatever Virat did at that point would go to the boundary. It was a serious innings. Hats off."
He went on: "Virat is an extremely talented, very good player. He has been for a long time. You have to see it how he played today. He times his chase to perfection. He averages more than 60 while chasing, which is quite remarkable. I think he is a perfect example of that you can succeed by playing orthodox strokes in this format. He has got incredible wrists which is a great skill in this format."
Australian coach Darren Lehmann reminded everyone that it is possible for one man to beat a team in T20 cricket.
"We are disappointed we got knocked out but we got beaten by one bloke," Lehmann said. "That can happen in the nature of T20. That was the best T20 innings I've seen for a long time. I think everyone is probably in awe of that innings itself."
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