The Netherlands player had admitted to his prediction over the Indian star Virat Kohli during the World Cup 2011.
Barresi’s wrong prediction on Virat Kohli’s potential
Virat Kohli is known as one of the best batters of this era. His records and achievements in all three formats were impressive. Although his career has had lots of ups and downs, he was well-defined by coming over the critics with a great comeback.
It happened at the start of his career at the 2014 tour and during the COVID phase where he was on century drought for three years. But each time he bounced back with a great comeback, breaking records as he re-established himself as one of the best batters of the era.
Many experts and analysts have accepted their wrong predictions about the star and among them is the Netherlands cricket star who is part of the World Cup 2023. The 39-year-old Barresi was part of the 2011 squad that had traveled to India for the World Cup.
The Netherlands had played against India and it was their only second meeting in International cricket and first in eight years. During the match, Barresi dismissed Kohli for 12 runs in India’s chase of 190.
India had an impressive start during the match as they scored 80 runs for 1 wicket but soon to their demise as they went for four wickets for 99 runs which brought the heated moment where Baressi told media, “We’ll never see or hear from you again.”
12 years later, Baressi recalled the incident and admitted that he had made a wrong prediction about Kohli as he broke multiple records of other batting legends in his career.
“Maybe I got slightly cocky that night, but looking at that Indian team, they had superstars galore, and Kohli was the youngster, the timing was perfect to hand out a bit of stick. He certainly proved us wrong,” he said.
“It was all part of the moment, and we were fired up. We had them on the ropes, they were three or four down, so we felt like we were in the game a little. It was an excellent opportunity to knock India over in India. The atmosphere and everything that was going on spurred us on a bit, and we might have gotten ahead of ourselves,” he added.
“The stadium was completely packed and painted blue everywhere. I just remember standing behind the stumps and seeing Sachin Tendulkar right in front of me.”
The match was a victory for the hosts as Yuvraj Singh crushed the hopes of the Netherlands with his unbeaten 53 runs off 73 deliveries.
The Netherlands is scheduled to play in the 6th match of the ICC World Cup 2023 against New Zealand on October 09 at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.
