VIRAT KOHLI TAKES ON HEAD COACH RAVI SHASTRI AFTER PANT’S DISMISSAL: VIDEO VIRAL

Team India’s dreams of winning a third Cricket World Cup title ended on Wednesday after New Zealand knocked down India by 18 runs in their semi-final match of the 2019 edition at Old Trafford, Manchester. By chasing New Zealand’s 239/8, India got off to a devastating start.

The bad luck began during the fourth over, when India was 5/3 with the top-three batsman KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, who were sent back to pavilion in the first four over. Meanwhile, Rishabh Pant, who was promoted ahead of Dinesh Karthik and MS Dhoni showed good temperament and batted cautiously facing 55 balls for 32 runs.

However, he got dismissed later in the fifth ball of the 23rd over, bowled by Mitchell Santner where he ended up offering an easy catch to Colin de Grandhomme to leave India at 71/5.

Soon following his dismissal, a visibly furious Kohli was spotted coming out of the dressing room and went straight to Ravi Shastri, who was seated at the balcony and fired some words at the head coach.

According to India Today reports, Australian commentator Mark Nicholas, who was on-air for Star Sports, suggested that the chat could have been just about Kohli letting his frustrations out, considering he wouldn't have wanted to do it in the dressing room in front of youngsters. While, Sourav Ganguly, who was also on-air for Star Sports, questioned the decision of holding an experienced batsman like MS Dhoni back when the team was under pressure after losing early wickets.

As per Republic World reports, Kohli was later asked about his irritation at the manner of Pant's dismissal in his post-match press conference, to which he said, "He did well to overcome the situation. In hindsight, he's still young, and even in my youth, I made many errors. In time he'll realise, or maybe even now. The talent is there for everyone to see. But a few shots weren't good."

The skipper didn't restrict his criticism on shot selection to Pant alone, attributing it to a number of key dismissals:

"Rohit and I got very good balls. Yes, some shot selection could have been better. We thought we could get the score. 240 is comfortable. For first 6-7 overs we didn't get the ball to drive. We're not shying away from accepting failure and that we weren't good enough under pressure."

#ICCWorldCup2019 pic.twitter.com/e5YBuwnal0

— Dhruv George (@JibberJabberDG) July 10, 2019

Wonder what's going on here? pic.twitter.com/1ryi7lTZdm

— Dhruv George (@JibberJabberDG) July 10, 2019