When questioned about the ‘fastest runner between the wickets’ he has played with in his career, Virat Kohli did not choose MS Dhoni.
Virat Kohli, one of the game’s strongest players, is a lightning rod on the field. Kohli converts ones into twos with greater ease when running between the wickets. The great batter has also shared the field with some of cricket’s fittest players, including MS Dhoni. There is probably no better runner between the wickets than the Ranchi-born wicket-keeper batter. However, Dhoni is not the ‘fastest runner’ with whom Virat Kohli has raced so far in his cricketing career.
Kohli was questioned about the ‘fastest runner’ he has run with in his career during an interview with AB de Villiers on ‘The Quick Singles’. Kohli then chose the former South African batsman.
“I’ve been asked this question before,” Kohli said. Between the wickets, AB has been by far the quickest I’ve run with. MS is the only other person I’ve had this level of coordination and understanding with. (Dhoni). I’m not sure about the speeds, but with him and MS, I wouldn’t even need to phone.
When AB de Villiers was posed the same question, he chose his countryman Faf du Plessis.
De Villiers added, “Mine is also contentious. “Faf is the greatest runner I have ever run with, hands down. But throughout my tenure, he has run me out at least seven times. The worst mistakes have happened to us.
Kohli was questioned about the “worst runner” he had ever raced with between the wickets during the conversation. The “controversial” query he was asked had Cheteshwar Pujara as the answer.
On the 2018 tour, a Centurion Test was played. In each stanza, he was run out. In the first innings of the Centurion Test, Pujara was run out, and I responded, “It’s OK; such things happen in cricket.” In the second innings, Cheteshwar Pujara played a shot and called Parthiv Patel for the third run; Pujara then ran towards the danger end and was run out once more, this time by a significant margin.
There was no one on the television when the replay was shown, only Quinny removing the bails. I felt like you had run yourself out of the game in the first inning. How could you be so brave to take on the quickest guy on the field and then not be seen in the frame when the replay was shown? I felt like a deity. “That is the worst decision I have ever seen,” Kohli said after selecting Pujara.
