'Sometimes I get dreams about it' - Virat Kohli regrets missing a big hundred in 2023 World Cup final

Virat Kohli has admitted that his dismissal for 54 in the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup final on November 19, 2023, at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad continues to haunt him, saying he still gets dreams about the moment.

Kohli was dismissed in the 29th over by Pat Cummins, dragging a short-of-a-length delivery onto his own stumps. His departure ended a 67-run fourth-wicket partnership with KL Rahul, and India went on to post 240 all out. Australia chased the target down with six wickets to spare.

"Sometimes I get dreams about it. Like, what if I hadn't missed that ball? I was 54 off 60 odd balls. I had set myself up, that if I can get a big hundred here, like if I got 140-150, we would be in a great position to win that game. Because we would be 300-plus in a big final, 300, 320, and with our bowling, we'll get them. But as soon as I got out, played on, it was very tough to process for many days, and you keep thinking about it, what an opportunity," Kohli told JioStar.

Why does Kohli's dismissal in the 2023 final still weigh on him?

Kohli had done the difficult work of building an innings on a sluggish Narendra Modi Stadium surface that offered little pace and even less bounce. He had reached 54 off 63 deliveries before a short-of-a-length delivery from Cummins found its way through and he dragged it onto his stumps in the 29th over.

That single dismissal broke a productive 67-run partnership with KL Rahul and triggered a middle-order collapse that left India well short of a competitive total. The final score of 240 all out proved insufficient as Australia completed a six-wicket victory to claim the World Cup title.

Three years on, Kohli has spoken openly about how difficult the aftermath was to process. He has not framed the regret purely in personal terms but has connected it directly to the belief that a larger total would have put India's bowling attack in a position to defend comfortably.

How strong was India's bowling attack during the 2023 World Cup campaign?

Kohli's confidence in his bowlers during the tournament was not without foundation. Across eleven matches en route to the final, India bowled out their opposition on eight separate occasions, dismissing Sri Lanka for 55, South Africa for 83 and defending champions England for 129 at various stages of the campaign.

Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Kuldeep Yadav formed the core of that attack, while Ravindra Jadeja contributed 16 wickets at an economy rate of 4.25 and Mohammed Siraj added 14 more scalps. India's specialist bowling unit finished the tournament with 89 wickets in total across the campaign.

Those numbers explain precisely why Kohli believed a score of 300 or 320 would have been enough to win the final. With an attack of that calibre, a par-plus total would have placed enormous pressure on Australia. The regret, as Kohli has described it, is rooted in the knowledge that the bowling unit had done everything required throughout the tournament, and a larger contribution from him in the final could have changed the outcome.