ICC World T20 | Twitter reacts to Virat Kohli being falsely labelled cheater for 'fake fielding' against Bangladesh

Virat Kohli is all over the headlines once again, for things good and bad, much like during his prime. The rejuvenated batter has roared back to form in recent times with aplomb, ending a three-year international century drought before scoring a string of half-centuries to lead his team to one incredible win after another. The 33-year-old is the leading run scorer in the ongoing World T20 at the moment and well on course to be named the player of the tournament for a record third time after another man-of-the-match performance against Bangladesh in Adelaide on Wednesday. After a long time, Kohli seems to be genuinely enjoying representing India and playing his best cricket, as is evident in his over-expressive nature while batting and overwhelming enthusiasm on the field at all times.

Kohli's unbeaten 64 off 44 balls had led the Men in Blue to a commanding total of 184/5 but the Tigers almost took away the game largely courtesy of a ferocious opening blitz by Litton Das, only to end up falling short by five runs in a rain-marred innings. However, if Bangladesh's Nurul Hasan is to be believed, their Asian rivals must have been penalized five runs for their star player's antics thus swinging the result away from the eventual winners.

On the second ball of the seventh over, Litton Das stroked Axar Patel's arm ball towards point for a quick but comfortable two. While Arshdeep Singh was throwing the ball to the keeper, Kohli seemed to pretend the ball was in his grasp and throw it at the bowler's end as it passed him at point.

According to ICC's latest rules, any case of 'fake fielding' that deceives batsmen is worth five penalty runs for the batting team. However, Kohli is known for being extremely animated while fielding, especially in crunch games, and his actions had absolutely no impact on the game. The incident was so innocuous that it even failed to catch the attention of either batsmen or the umpires and was not brought up until after the game's conclusion. The 33-year-old has always been a victim of intense scrutiny for his actions and this was just another example of the media making a mountain of a molehill, as pointed out by Twitterati.

What is your opinon?

Can this be called distracting

What of course?

How is this fake fielding?

That was not deceiving

No appeal

They did not hesitate

Umpires did great work

Mathing???

definetly not