Nepal cricketers were akin to a bunch of starstruck kids when they met and played against India in their Asia Cup match on Monday.
Nepal's players Asif Shaikh and Sompal Kami posted pictures with India's superstar Virat Kohli on social media after the match.
While Asif took a photo with Kohli and captioned it 'With The Man Who Rules the Cricketing Kingdom', Sompal Kami got his boots autographed by Kohli, and then put a picture of the autographed boot on his Twitter handle.
'Virat Kohli is not just a cricketer, he's an emotion.” #motivation #viratkohli #instagram #instapic #respect #cricket #dreamcometrue', Kami wrote on his interaction with Kohli.
After Nepal ended their Asia Cup 2023 campaign with a loss against India by 10 wickets, Nepal captain Rohit Paudel revealed that his team talked with Indian skipper Rohit Sharma and batter Kohli which was a useful conversation.
Blistering batting display from Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma helped India defeat Nepal by 10 wickets via the DLS method in a rain-curtailed match in the Asia Cup 2023 at Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on Monday.
In the post-match press conference, Nepal captain said, "We talked with Rohit and Virat and they shared their experience with us and this will be very useful for us."
Paudel also said that he was satisfied with the performance of his team, however, he thought that 260-270 would have been a better score.
“Overall I am happy with the performance of the boys especially with the bat. I think the openers did a very good job. In the middle order, we could have done better. I thought somewhere around 260-270 would have been a good score. If you talk overall, I am happy with the performance.”
Indian openers batted till the end and one other Indian batter got the opportunity to bat. Paudel was a little disappointed that they did not get the opportunity to ball against Virat.
“We did not get the opportunity to ball against Virat as both openers batted till last.”
When asked about the difference between the India and Pakistan match, the Nepal captain said, “It mostly depends upon the condition, when we played against Pakistan, I thought it was most favourable for the medium pacer and we took the opportunity from that. Today’s condition was more challenging because of dew as the ball was not gripping. But the credit goes to Shubman and Rohit bhai, the way they batted.”
With this, India has secured a total of three points in their two group-stage matches and advanced to the Super 4 stage. India will face arch-rival Pakistan in their Super Four match on Sunday.
