I have been thor­ough­ly en­joy­ing the ICC Men’s Crick­et World Cup 2023 and I am high­ly im­pressed with some of the per­for­mances on show.

As a bat­ter, it has been mag­nif­i­cent to see and I’m not sure fans around the world could have asked for any­thing bet­ter.

Some of the pitch­es have been good for run-scor­ing and we have seen so many high-class per­for­mances. There have been record-break­ing cen­turies from Aiden Markram and Glenn Maxwell, Quin­ton de Kock has had an amaz­ing tour­na­ment and the young man Rachin Ravin­dra looks an ex­cep­tion­al tal­ent.

There have been a whole host of tal­ent­ed in­di­vid­u­als on show but to top them all, you can­not look past Vi­rat Kohli. I am a huge fan of Vi­rat, I have been for a long time, and he con­tin­ues to show why he has to go down as one of the all-time greats, right up there with the likes of the great Sachin

Vi­rat will have been through some tough times be­fore this World Cup and some folks were even brave enough to call for his head.

Cred­it must be giv­en to the back­room staff and every­one who backed him. So much was said about his form but he is back on top of his game. It is phe­nom­e­nal to see an in­di­vid­ual who has had his low points bounc­ing back and play­ing like this. They say form is tem­po­rary – and he has cer­tain­ly proven that class is per­ma­nent. I am so hap­py for him, he looks so fo­cused and he is a cred­it to the game of crick­et.

Vi­rat is a go-get­ter and what sets him apart is his men­tal strength. He will have backed him­self through­out, and on the oc­ca­sions in the past in which I have chat­ted with him and we have dis­cussed things, his men­tal strength has al­ways been ev­i­dent. That has been key to push­ing him through to how he is play­ing now. Very few play­ers, or peo­ple, are built like that.

Many peo­ple have made com­par­isons be­tween the two of us over the years, part­ly be­cause of our shared in­ten­si­ty on the field. I love Vi­rat’s en­thu­si­asm – even if he is field­ing at long-on or long-off when one of his bowlers hits the pad, he is ap­peal­ing. He is al­ways in the game and I like in­di­vid­u­als like that.

Shub­man Gill is an­oth­er who bats with style and he is just one among a whole host of play­ers who have all the big shots. I am just hop­ing no one for­gets there was a guy with­out a hel­met by the name of Vi­vian Richards who went out and played like that some­times! Some of the shots played to­day are those I like to think I had in my ar­moury, maybe ex­cept the re­verse sweep, but that would have been un­wise with­out the lid on. I’d like to think my scor­ing rate match­es up with the guys play­ing to­day, though the game has moved on mas­sive­ly – as a fan, I am de­light­ed with where the game is at cur­rent­ly.

In terms of this year’s com­pe­ti­tion, In­dia has a mind­set that they can go all the way play­ing like this. That ab­solute­ly should be their mind­set and would be mine if I were in that dress­ing room – let’s go out with all guns blaz­ing. That ap­proach has worked so far and if that changes, things may go astray.

I be­lieve they can go all the way un­beat­en, which is re­al­ly some­thing to strive for. There may be some fears of ‘we have played so well so far, there may be a bad game around the cor­ner in the se­mi-fi­nal’. They have to try and nul­li­fy those and ban­ish any neg­a­tive thoughts.

Pak­istan could yet join them in the knock­out stages but I can’t help think­ing that with the tal­ent they have, they should have al­ready sealed their spot. I have seen up close in re­cent years through my coach­ing work [Pak­istan Su­per League] how much abil­i­ty ex­ists in that squad but they have made life hard for them­selves – I think they are a more tal­ent­ed squad than their place in the ta­ble would sug­gest. They can beat the very best on their day so there may be some punch­es left in that team.

One of the high­lights of this World Cup, for me, has been watch­ing Afghanistan. If they get a score of over 250, the bowl­ing class they have means they are in the game all the time. Al­though they were de­nied by an amaz­ing Glenn Maxwell in­nings against Aus­tralia, they have made a re­al state­ment in re­cent weeks and their per­for­mances will be in­spi­ra­tional for those who play the game in Afghanistan.

By con­trast, it is a shame for the fans in the West In­dies that they have not had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to see their team in ac­tion. I am hop­ing it acts as a wake-up call as it is a com­pe­ti­tion which means so much to us. The two World Cups we won in 1975 and 1979 re­main the high­lights of my ca­reer.

To make our mark on the glob­al stage and lift the tro­phy was an in­cred­i­ble feel­ing. I hope it serves as a re­minder to the guys who are play­ing to­day and acts as in­spi­ra­tion for them to reach that lev­el. (Source - ICC)

Lead­ers bats­men

565_Rachin Ravin­dra, New Zealand (9 games)

550_Quin­ton de Kock, South Africa (8)

543_Vi­rat Kohli, In­dia (8)

446_David Warn­er, Aus­tralia (8)

442_Ro­hit Shar­ma, In­dia (8)

418_Daryl Mitchell, New Zealand (9)

397_Glenn Maxwell, Aus­tralia (7)

373_Daw­id Malan, Eng­land (8)

373_Sadeera Sama­rawick­ra­ma, Sri Lan­ka (9)

371_Aiden Markram, South Africa (8)

21_Dil­shan Madushanka, Sri Lan­ka (9)

20_Adam Zam­pa, Aus­tralia (8)

17_Mar­co Jansen, South Africa (8)

16_Mo­hammed Sha­mi, In­dia (4)

16_Sha­heen Afri­di, Pak­istan (8)

16_Mitchell Sant­ner, New Zealand (9)

15_Jasprit Bum­rah, In­dia (8)

14_Ger­ald Co­et­zee, South Africa (6)

14_Ravin­dra Jade­ja, In­dia (8)

14_Bas de Leede, Nether­lands (8)