The Indian batting great made his sense of appreciation for England skipper clear once again with a viral tweet in the midst of the thrilling Lord's Test.
As Ben Stokes reminded the world of his big-match temperament and exceptional skill besides a sense for the occasion with an inspiring century on Day 5 of the Lord’s Ashes 2023 Test, Virat Kohli lavished a great compliment on the English skipper and their premier allrounder.
Stokes ignited the English hopes with a blistering and highly threatening knock of 155, becoming the hosts’ lone warrior by the end in their ultimately unsuccessful quest to reach the imposing 371-run target. The captain led from the front and pulled off a major scare in the mould of Headingley 2019 for the Australians.
The lessons learnt from that horrifying final session in Leeds four years earlier helped the tourists eventually tame the mighty beast. But during the thick of action, they were definitely pushed onto the backfoot while the cricket fraternity watched in awe how Ben Stokes is able to raise his game when the chips are down.
Indian batting great Kohli was one of the Stokes fans who tuned into the riveting Lord’s Test finale and cited the great knock as an example to reiterate why he believes the English skipper is the most “competitive” cricketer he has locked horns with.
With the Australians under the pump after dominating the best part of their chase and fearing for the worst misery unleashed on them since Headingley, Kohli made an uncensored compliment for Stokes, restating why he deemed him the most “competitive bloke I have played against” after the man’s shocking premature retirement from ODI cricket last year.
I wasn’t joking about calling Ben Stokes the most competitive bloke I’ve played against. Innings of the highest quality but Australia is too good at the moment 👍
— Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) July 2, 2023
After biding his time through and applying powers of great concentration and resolute defence for the first half of his innings during a resurrection stand for the fifth wicket with opener Ben Duckett, Stokes didn’t waste much time to enter the beast mode with the tail for company and started belting the ball out of the park.
He unleashed an assault for the memories on the Australians, hitting 9 fours and 9 sixes. The left-hander ultimately fell on the sword he lived with, mistiming one of his attempted sixes to wicketkeeper Alex Carey, which reignited happy faces in the Australian camp, but whilst he was there, England could sense hope.
