Virat Kohli is set to lead Team India against Kane Williamson’s New Zealand in the first semi-final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 when the two teams meet in Manchester on Tuesday.
The clash between Men in Blue and the Black Caps shares eerie similarities with 2008’s U-19 World Cup semi-finals.
During the U-19 World Cup semi-final, the two sides that faced off against each other were also India and New Zealand.
Well, the current captains of both teams Kohli and Williamson, who rose through the ranks of U-19 cricket, led their respective sides during the 2008 U-19 semi-finals.
Ahead of Tuesday’s match, when Kohli was asked about his memories from 11 years ago, he replied with a smile saying that it’s a really nice thing to happen.
“Quite a nice thing to realise that 11 years after, we are captaining our respective nations again in a senior World Cup from U19. So, yeah we’ve spoken about it before. A lot of players from that whole World Cup from our batch, from their batch, from other teams as well made it to their national teams as well and are still playing, which is I think a great thing to see.
“I think it’s a really nice memory and we’ll both feel good about this is happening. Obviously neither him nor me could have anticipated that one day this will happen, but yeah it’s a really nice thing,” said Kohli.
Also, the Indian skipper left everybody in splits when he suggested that he is a lethal bowler and can roll his arm over any time the team needs but the only thing he has to be careful about is not slipping on the pitch at the time of delivery.
"I am a lethal bowler" – jokes captain @imVkohli 😁😁 #TeamIndia #CWC19 #INDvNZ pic.twitter.com/yjTFH9H1ve
— BCCI (@BCCI) July 8, 2019
Ravindra Jadeja, Trent Boult, and Tim Southee also featured in the Under 19 semi-final. Captain Kohli, who helped India trump New Zealand by 3 wickets with an all-round performance, had then accounted for the big wicket of Kane Williamson.
