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It’s not like only two guys are playing in this series. AB (de Villiers) is a great friend of mine. I respect the way he plays the game and I have always respected him as a person as well. Every player wants to be the stand out batsman and make contributions towards the team winning. Unless you have that as a group, you don’t have too many chances of winning a series. Some people may have brilliant individual performances and then you will be fine with one or two people doing well,” Kohli had said prior to the series when questioned about his battle with the South African star batsman.
They say cricket is a 22-member sport and Kohli's words emphasized on how you need to stand up as a group to win a Test series. But four days into the Centurion Test match and it is already turning into a battle between two modern day geniuses — Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers.
If it was de Villiers who set the series alive with an exhibition of counter-attacking cricket in the first Test in Cape Town — an innings that arguably won hosts the Test, plausibly even the series — it was Kohli who fought back with a breathtaking 153, his eleventh score of over 150 in Tests, in the first innings of the second Test in Centurion.
The battle between the two seems to have no end. Kohli's intent and positive approach at the crease was so impressive that de Villiers probably took cue from it in South Africa's second innings on a treacherous Centurion track.
Kohli’s 153 came with India struggling at 28/2 in the first innings. In the company of Murali Vijay and later Ravichandran Ashwin, the Indian skipper not only resuscitated the Indian innings, but also gave it some much-needed oomph, taking India close to South Africa's first innings total.
De Villiers had an even more crucial role to play. In the second innings, his team lost two wickets for just three runs when when he jogged in on his home ground. Aiden Markram and Hashim Amla had both been sent back by Jasprit Bumrah, but the factor more worrying was the low bounce on this subcontinent-like wicket.
Not for de Villiers, though. He bats on a different planet against most attacks on most wickets. He flicked Bumrah for four through fine-leg off the first ball he faced and reverse-swept Ashwin off the second ball he faced from the off-spinner. What unfolded over the course of the day was a pristine, delicately-beautiful knock studded with ten hits to the fence.
Not for once did he appear as if he had been out of Test action for more than a year before making his comeback just weeks ago. Playing the ball late, defending with intent, punching subtly, driving elegantly and flicking animatedly, de Villiers once again had India and Kohli on the mat.
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