T20 World Cup 2024: A big score is just around the corner for Kohli, says Bangar

New Delhi, June 14 (IANS) Former India cricketer Sanjay Bangar said that Virat Kohli will soon end his streak of low scores in the ongoing T20 World Cup as the Men in Blue have shifted their base to Florida from New York. 

In the first three matches of the group stage, Kohli had only scored 1, 4 and 0 respectively at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium. The star batter has failed to leave his print in the tournament where he finished as the highest run-getter with 296 runs in the last edition.

Kohli's struggle has been directly linked to the uneven bounce of New York's tricky surface where India played all their matches so far. India are set to take on Canada in their final group stage encounter at Lauderhill in Florida on Saturday.

"Yeah, I agree that Virat Kohli hasn't scored in the New York leg, but none of the other batsmen have also managed to score a lot of runs on this track. This is a tricky surface and therefore I feel that a big score is just around the corner. He is a player who has excelled at the World Cup events and once the tournament moves to the next phase, those competitive juices will start flowing again and he will start putting up performances for his team," Bangar told Star Sports.

In the last encounter, India defeated the co-hosts USA by seven wickets to seal a Super Eight berth in the tournament.

Speaking on how Suryakumar Yadav changed his regular approach to hitting an unbeaten half-century against the USA off 49 balls, the veteran cricketer said, "The way Suryakumar Yadav made sure that through his batting composure when setting up that chase was really, really good. He made sure that there was stability in the middle overs wherein after the loss of a couple of wickets in the initial overs, he was the one who anchored the chase to perfection."

Bangar further lauded India's all-round effort in the bowling that helped them to even chase a below-par total of 119 against arch-rivals Pakistan.

"Obviously, everybody or all the bowlers want to do their roles and complement each other because if you have a partner at the other end who is bowling or who is putting pressure on the batters, then the team eventually benefits. So I don't really want to get into who is number one, who is number two. It just augurs well for the Indian team that all the bowlers are coming together and performing," he said.