Bhubaneswar: Indian men and women teams’ cricket team captains ended their year in a high. Women’s team Captain Harmanpreet Kaur and Men’s team Captain Virat Kohli did commendable jobs both as players and leaders.
Harmanpreet Kaur
Kaur is the captain of women’s ODI and T20 team. She was recently declared captain of the International Cricket Council (ICC) women’s T20 international team. Her team mates Smriti Mandhana and Poonam Yadav also featured in the team.
Harmanpreet was rewarded for spearheading her side to the semi-finals of the ICC Women’s World T20 2018 in the Caribbean in November. In the tournament, Kaur scored 183 runs at a strike-rate of 160.5, while in the 25 matches in the calendar year, she accumulated 663 runs at a strike-rate of 126.2. Kaur is ranked third in the ICC Women’s Player Rankings for T20.
She’s a path-breaker too, having become the first India cricketer – male or female – to sign a Big Bash League contract with Sydney Thunder in Australia. The deal came about on the back of an impressive showing during India’s tour of Australia in January 2016, where she made a 31-ball 46 to script India’s highest-ever T20 chase. In June 2017, she became the first Indian to sign with Surrey Stars in ECB’s Kia Super League.
Virat Kohli
On the other hand, Men’s cricket team limited over Captain Virat Kohli has been nothing less than a run machine this year. He has been consistent, hard-hitting. In-form and spearheading the team to wins.
Not just for India, but also in the world Kohli has been the highest run-getter across all formats in international cricket in a calendar year.
In the year 2016 he scored 2595 runs, in the year 2017 he got 2818 runs and finally in 2018 he amassed a total of 2735 runs.
ESPN CricInfo tweeted the following picture which shows the discussed facts:
Indian Men’s cricket team is on verge of winning the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia this year with India going with a 2-1 lead into their next test match at Sydney.
Under Kohli, India have ascended to the No. 1 Test ranking and held onto it with an iron grip while also reaching the joint top position in ODIs. Very obviously the target that he has set his eyes on will be the Cricket World Cup to be held in Australia in 2019.
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