Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma receive invitation for Ram Temple consecration ceremony.© Twitter
Virat Kohli is the latest Indian cricket team player to get an invitation to attend the Ram Temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22. Before this, MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Venkatesh Prasad were among the players who were sent invitations for the auspicious occasion. Kohli and his wife Anuskha Sharma, who is a well-known Bollywood actress, were presented with the invitation to attend the grand inauguration of the temple in Uttar Pradesh. According to media reports, Kohli was travelling with the Indian cricket team for the ongoing T20I series against Afghanistan but the star batter came back to his home in Mumbai to receive the invitation personally before going to Bengaluru for the third match.
Meanwhile, with the series already in the bag, India will be eager to perfect their freshly-baked T20 template as a team and hope that skipper Rohit Sharma’s bat finally fires when they face Afghanistan in the third and last match of the rubber on Wednesday.
This will be India’s final T20 game ahead of the World Cup in June, and the team management wouldn’t want any drop in intensity that was displayed during victories at Mohali and Indore.
India’s identical six-wicket wins were marked by an ultra-aggressive mindset from ball one that saw them chasing down 159 in 17.3 overs and 173 in 15.4 overs respectively.
It was a clear deviation from their earlier approach of building the momentum for a final flourish in T20s. None showed this intent more brightly than Shivam Dube and Virat Kohli.
Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma receives the invitation letter for the Ram Mandir Pran Pratistha.
Jai Shree Rampic.twitter.com/ek4e3HpGyi
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Kohli was playing a T20I for India after 14 months at Indore, but he creamed a 16-ball 29 at a strike rate of 181.
The most noteworthy feature of his little yet significant innings was the way he handled Afghan spinner Mujeeb-ur-Rahman, whom he carted for 18 runs off seven balls, striking against him at a rate of 257.
Kohli has always been a bit of a slow-mover against spin but there was no trepidation this time and he showed commendable alacrity to contribute his two cents to a transformed approach.
(With PTI inputs)
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